


Coffee and Curse-Breakers

by Pixileanin



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Aurors, Community: HPFT, Complete, Curse Breaking, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Murder Mystery, Post-War, Retribution, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Were-Creatures, Widowed, lycanthropy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-03 14:29:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 22,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14570988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pixileanin/pseuds/Pixileanin
Summary: Soulmate AU where Nymphadora Tonks survived the Battle of HogwartsShe saw the two broken, wavy lines across the top of his wrist, not pink from the coffee spill, but actually glowing from under his skin.   They matched hers.No, it couldn't be this man.  There had to be some mistake.





	1. Coffee Shop

**Author's Note:**

> GENRES: Action/Adventure, Mystery, Hurt/Comfort,  
> RATINGS AND ADVISORIES: (M)  
> Violence  
> Language  
> Mention of attempted suicide  
> Substance use/abuse
> 
> AU: Tonks was never in the Battle at Hogwarts. I don’t go into details of where she was instead.
> 
> NOTES:  
> Written for Madimalfoy’s “The Soulmate AU and Random Prompt Challenge” on HPFT  
> Written also for Starfeather’s “Auror’s Tale Story Challenge Season 4 Unleash Your Mystery! Challenge” on HPFT.  
> Chapter 1 written for The Houses Competition, Year Two, Round Five on ffnet
> 
> Betas: Aya Diefair, Angel of Sorrows, 1917farmgirl, starspangledpumpkin. A special shoutout to Aya, who read this thing from begining to end, tracking down as many inconsistencies as she could, and for being a great source of support and encouragement during the process of putting this thing together. THANK YOU!

1 Coffee Shop

Every day, Nymphadora Tonks stood in the six o’clock coffee line at The Erised Cafe in Carkitt Market, waiting to purchase a Cafe Latte and the morning newspaper. Just like clockwork, she found herself staring at the same broad shoulders of the man in front of her. His flipped up coat collar would normally overshadow most of his face, but today it sagged down on his left side to reveal dark hair and a nasty scar running from his cheek to his earlobe. 

On this, a typical Thursday morning, she waited patiently as he ordered the same coffee he always did with a strange code-word title, which sent the barista scurrying to the back for the special ingredients. She never knew why, after weeks of the same man coming in at the same time, this serving witch wouldn't already have his order ready for him like she did with some of the other regular patrons. But if the barista had the forethought to prepare his order ahead of time, Tonks wouldn't have the luxury of standing behind him, listening to the youthful, country twang of his voice.

The sound rolled over her like a warm blanket, and she closed her eyes, imagining the face that belonged to the voice. Not that she'd ever gotten a good look at him, with his head always tucked under the brim of his hat. She usually lingered in the shop for a few minutes to observe the people around her before heading into the Auror’s office.

Wondering which one of these people had drawn her here, day after day.

Today, his overcoat stretched taut over his back, hunched and bothered. His voice, not so smooth, not so collected, and held a hint of nervous uncertainty.

Her wrist itched uncomfortably. The large potted plants that flanked the door had been growing a strange, vine-like weed in them for weeks and had started to bloom clusters of white flowers that smelled funny. She’d brushed by them earlier, maybe she was allergic? No. Her wrist itch had turned into a sharp sting. Oh. Oh that. Not an allergy.

Something was wrong.

Not now, she thought to herself. Couldn’t she just enjoy her morning first without this stupid mark ruining it for her?

She’d barely had time to process her husband’s death when a thin duo of wavy brown lines had shown up on her wrist three weeks after the war, sending her into an inexplicable shock. They had appeared at the absolute worst time, with the Auror Department calling all hands to finish tracking down the remaining Death Eaters after Voldemort’s fall at the Battle of Hogwarts.

Remus had been her everything, and then he was gone. He’d been working for a secret organization that had brought down the biggest tyrant of their lifetime, but he’d paid the highest price for it. After his death, she often wished that she had joined the Order and died at his side so at least they could be together forever. She was convinced that she’d never feel the same about anyone else ever again. 

If it wasn’t for the fancy magic performed by the Unspeakables, she would have been dead within hours. After they explained that the mark was part of a pair, and the two bearers of the marks seemed to be linked – even to the point of death – she'd decided that she had the will to live after all, and made it her singular mission to find this other person and throttle them for almost killing her.

So here she was, in the coffee shop that she had scryed as the location of the matching marks, coming in every morning for two months to get coffee and skim the morning paper headlines, ready to confront a stranger so that she could keep on living.

But she hadn’t found the noncepants yet.

She could already see the headlines in big bold letters from across the shop, informing the world (or at least her small part of it) about another rogue group attacking suspected Death Eaters. Tonks predicted that the article would once again point out the failure of the Aurors to put a stop to these outlaws, who they had taken to calling ‘Hunters’. It was rumored (also by the paper) that these so-called Hunters were doing a better job at rounding up and ‘dealing with’ the war criminals than the Ministry. She couldn’t blame people for wanting faster closure. A year after the Battle of Hogwarts, they were still trying to track down the remaining followers of Voldemort who had continued to evade capture. Sometimes justice was a long, painful road. Tonks wished she could see the end of it, but the longer the suspects remained in hiding, the harder they were to find.

The man in front of her was finally next in line. He ordered his coffee, waited with a bowed head and hunched over shoulders, and then struggled to retrieve his wallet. His chin crept farther from under the brim of his hat as he almost threw the coins at the wary barista. 

“Sorry…” he muttered, in that nervous uncertain tone, setting the hairs on her arms on fire.

Something was definitely wrong. And it wouldn't have mattered except she'd silently watched this man and his special coffee, and all the other regulars at this coffee shop, for months now. She knew them all. Their mannerisms, their habits… who was late, who was early…. Who had a rushed shower that morning and which ones were there because they had nothing better to do. She knew the difference between the loiterers and the career-driven patrons. She knew his morning, and it clearly wasn't going well. 

Lots of people stood in line for coffee every day –this was a popular spot– and just because she enjoyed listening to the timbre of his voice every morning, it didn't mean that this was the person she was tracking. She had seen no evidence… she just liked lingering in the unspoken moment before she had to get down to business. That was all it was. Right before she moved on to her everyday job where she was only known as “Tonks” (which was the name she preferred anyhow), she let herself sink into a dream-like zen state where she could enjoy a hot beverage in the presence of a stranger who made her feel whole again. 

The man she stood behind in the coffee line couldn’t be the one, because that would be too easy. Her mark gave no indication that he was any different from anyone else, and her morning ritual was nothing more than a daydream to occupy her thoughts. She shouldn't care. She had no reason to.

He turned around, too quickly, and his hot beverage sloshed out of the covered cup.

“Excuse me,” he said, looking down, not even at her. For the first time, she saw his whole face. She’d expected something young and vibrant, but his appearance struck her as ugly and old, and she drew back in spite of herself.

“Sorry,” she heard herself say, and wondered what she was apologizing for.

He had spilled some liquid on his sleeve, and had started dabbing himself with a single napkin. She found herself grabbing more napkins from the dispenser, stuffing them at him wordlessly, not meeting his eyes, just helping out the nameless stranger with the velvet voice. It was what decent people did for each other. He'd rolled up his sleeve so it wouldn't get stained, his hand pink from the hot liquid that had spilled all over him. 

Then she saw it. Two broken, wavy lines across the top of his wrist, not pink from the coffee spill, but actually glowing from under his skin. At the same time, she felt her own wrist burn like it never had before. 

The marks were shockingly familiar, like the underside of her own arm. They matched hers. 

No. It couldn’t be this man. There had to be some mistake.

He rubbed at his arm, pulled his sleeve down and rushed out the door, leaving her speechless.

“Miss?”

She whipped around to see the barista staring impatiently at her, all wariness and caution gone, replaced with impatience while the rest of the line murmured impatiently behind her. 

“Miss, are you going to order? Or get your daily paper?”

She glanced at the door, still swinging from the stranger’s hasty exit, then down at her own wrist, where two marks identical to the coffee-man’s glowed unnaturally pink. Exactly like his, except now hers were getting darker and beginning to burn.

“No thanks,” she said breathlessly, and ran out of the shop after him.


	2. 2 Alley

2 Alley

 

Marcus Chancey (God, he hated that name, even in his own head) ran down the street and took the first available turn down a narrow alleyway between two high buildings, thinking that the brick structures would hide him from busy morning pedestrians. Everything would be alright if he could stay hidden until he had his coffee and calmed down.

His mark was glowing, just like it did every time he went to the coffee shop. He didn't know why. What mattered was that every time he went for his special drink, the one he needed to remain in control, his wrist started to itch badly.

A year ago, the mark had appeared on his wrist after he’d recklessly shielded his team from a stream of hot, bright light pouring out of a Rune-covered box in southern India. He was deeply troubled when his Curse-Breaker co-workers couldn’t remove it, having discovered that it was the equivalent to an Unbreakable Vow, one that unfortunately didn’t require his, or anyone else’s, consent.

He’d run repeated tests on the mark, and came up with the same conclusion – he couldn’t get rid of it. So he did what anyone in his position would do, he ignored it the best he could.

The Runes translation for the curse claimed that he was linked to someone who shared a part of his soul, and that Fate had given him a gift. But he had suffered enough pain and misery, and wasn't about to spread it around. No matter what the Fates said. Fate could kiss his furry backside.

Actually, Fate was the only thing that would get close to him these days. Fate… and sheer bad luck, like he was having right now.

Even before the mark had shown up on his wrist, he was having more than his share of the universe dumping on him. His wife had died, most likely due to his sudden onset of half-blown Lycanthropy that was never supposed to happen. After that great tragedy, his comrades, fellow members of the premier Curse-Breaker Team in Gringotts, had found the right ingredients, a willing supplier, and a coffee shop with a shady enough reputation to produce the potion that was able to keep him human. Their collective plan of infusing Wolfsbane and other Were-suppressing herbs into his morning coffee had been successful for almost a year. This was the first time in many months that he'd gotten this close to losing control. 

No one understood how or why he had suddenly transformed without notice, having nothing to do with the phases of the moon or nightfall. The whole circumstance defied all understanding of Lycanthropy as they knew it. And from the manner in which he was attacked, he was never supposed to transform in the first place.

But all those suppositions hadn’t saved his wife.

With his heightened senses, he was hyper aware of heavy boots on the cobblestone street, along with the smell of entrapment hexes in the air. They were heading his way. But they weren’t Aurors. They were… he sniffed the air again. Hunters were nearby. 

Having been in hiding for almost a year, he’d accidentally rubbed shoulders with other individuals who, for whatever reason, didn’t want to be found either. Some of them had not been as lucky as he had, and either been picked up by the Ministry, or worse, had been hunted down by an unscrupulous underground group who often made them disappear – permanently.

He’d done his best to steer clear of anyone who might be associated with the Death Eaters, but somehow, the Hunters had recently caught wind of him. Someone definitely had talked, and Fate had dealt him another bad hand. Plus, he had run into an empty alley, and it had turned out to be a dead end.

He whirled around himself, looking for a way out. His skin begin to crawl, his jaw ached, and his muscles spasmed. 

Marcus. My name is Marcus. I am not who I was, I am not this thing. I am… 

Hair sprouted from his chest, his face, his hands. Everywhere. No mantra could save him. He was turning.

That's when she came around the corner, face flushed from running, her eyes bright and focused. It was the girl from the coffee shop that he'd bumped into. Her confident stance and no-nonsense balled up fists radiated with so much energy and will and fire…

And she was going to die.

They said that animals, particularly werewolves, didn’t simply smell the fear of their victims – they could taste it. The taste of terror would tip the monsters over the edge… make them ravenous, deriving primal pleasure from the violence, ultimately becoming addicted to the kill.

Obviously “they” had no idea what they were talking about. 

To him, fear stank. It was a vile, insidious sensation that sank into his every fiber. It gnawed at him, making his insides burn, setting his head on fire. The only way to put it out was to eliminate the source.

Or get as far away from it as quickly as possible. The first few times he’d transformed after going on the run had been horrible. He’d been minding his own business, when all of a sudden he sprouted hair and claws. It was only a half-transformation, but the distinction didn’t stop the people around him from staring in shock. Some ran. Some fainted on the spot. Some got down on their knees and begged. Fear stank up the air all around him, and with the exception of the first time, he remembered every terrifying, horrifying moment that he was only half-human.

He found no pleasure in it. He never wanted to kill. Ever.

So he ran.

“Hey!” the woman barked at him.

All he could do in this dead-end alley was put up his hands and hide his face behind the paper cup-with-lid, and hope that at first glance, she would run the other way. Besides the teeth and the hair, his face never lost its human characteristics. He was sure he was an ugly, frightening sight. 

The terror-filled scream never came.

“Look at me!” Something in her tone commanded him look around the coffee cup still clutched in his hands.

She was holding up her bare wrist, showing off two wavy dashes that pulsed a dangerous fuchsia color.

He'd stared at his own mark often enough to recognize it. It matched his exactly. 

“It's you!” He growled around his lengthened incisors. Dread seized him from the inside.   
He turned his back on her and bit out his words. “Get out of here!”

“I'm not going anywhere. This is exactly where I'm supposed to be. You have my mark.”

So what, had she seen his mark in the coffee shop and followed him, hoping to find true love, only to stumble upon an opportunity for her own untimely death?

“Don't be stupid. Can't you see what's happening?”

He could see her mark glowing bright pink now, almost red. This was his nightmare. Killing his soulmate. This was why he never wanted to meet her.

He’d expected the woman in front of him to reek of fear, this small thing that was barely a hundred pounds. One smack of his arm would send her flying across the alley. The partially formed claws breaking through his skin would shred her pretty, pale face in red ribbons…

It was too much. His chest heaved from the exertion of trying to maintain his thread of control. He pushed aside his memories, agonizingly aware of what would happen if that thread snapped.

The woman stood her ground. “I think you're the one who is acting stupid. Look at your mark!” 

“I don't need to see that you're about to get yourself killed,” he growled, the only way he was capable of communicating now that the transformation had taken place. “Look at the danger you're putting yourself in!”

If she wasn’t going to listen to reason, maybe she’d listen to the mark on his wrist. He held up his arm revealing the mark with broken dashes, just like hers. But instead of hot crimson, a sure sign of his soulmate’s impending and untimely death, his mark pulsed mildly pink in a steady heartbeat-like rhythm.

He snapped his eyes back to the woman’s wrist, which had now turned bright red. 

“Like I was trying to explain to you,” she said in an infuriatingly patient tone, “My mark shows me how much danger you’re in. It's not me, it's you. We need to get you out of here.”

The heavy footsteps resonated on cobblestones two blocks away, wands charged with wards and hexes at the ready. If he thought the Hunters had a chance of subduing him in this form, he’d have waited for them to arrive, but he knew what would happen instead. The half-beast would fight, tooth and claw, until there was nothing left, either of his attackers or of himself.

Instinct was a self-serving mistress, and so when she came closer and grabbed his furry arm, he was amazed that she dared to manhandle him into a side-apparition hold. Somewhere in the primal section of his brain, it had registered that his survival depended on the insanity of the stranger in front of him. He couldn’t escape from this alley on his own. None of his magic worked when he transformed. She was his only way out.

She balanced on her heel, about to spin them into oblivion, when he caught her final words:

“Don’t spill your coffee.”


	3. 3 Dead End

3 Dead End

 

It was cold. The coffee was cold, and tasted like dirt. Marcus drank it anyway and felt his insides settle, lulled into obedience by the mixture of potions, caffeine and cream.

He hadn't even registered until the last second that his hand still held the insulated cup with the snap on lid, amazed again at his primal survival instinct. In the midst of his transformation, he hadn't so much as creased the cardboard sleeve.

His eyes quickly adjusted to the low light of the cramped space, cluttered with shipping crates and rolls upon rolls of blank, uncut parchment. The woman lit up her wand, and they’d settled in with her propped up against a wall, and him sitting on one of the storage crates labeled “quill nibs”. He looked over to see the woman watching him with crossed arms, nodding. 

“That’s the way,” she said. “Better?”

Marcus rubbed at the back of his neck as his insides made an ugly, hollow sound.

She mumbled something under her breath and made a curiously familiar gesture with her fingers. Two brown sacks with the Three Broomsticks logo stamped on them appeared next to her, smelling of hot food. His team had done the same thing a dozen times over the last month when they’d been stuck in the security rooms at Gringotts, working on a peculiarly stubborn curse on an emerald ring from Zimbabwe. The goblins weren’t going to let the team leave until the item was safe for resale. They’d already found a ‘secure buyer’, which merely meant that the unnamed individual was willing to put down half a lifetime’s galleons for it. 

“This was last night’s that I forgot to pick up,” the woman said. “I think you need this more than I do.”

It was still early in the morning, but he was hungry. Starving. He took one of the sacks from her outstretched hand, careful not to get too close, unsure of how long this respite from the beast inside him would last this time.

He’d had his coffee every day for three weeks straight. He should never have turned.

The crate creaked with his weight as he settled back and put down the drained coffee cup. Then he opened the sack. Whatever was inside hit his senses like a bucking Hippogriff.

He made a mess of himself, gobbling down the greasy, deep-fried chicken, temporarily forgetting that he was being watched.

Whoever this woman was, she’d saved him when he should have been taken in to be exterminated, or whatever they did to whatever he’d become. The claws and teeth had receded for now, but unless she had gillyweed for brains, the reality of what he was should have sent her running far from the little alleyway near the coffee shop.

His eyes darted to her, sitting casually on the floor, not at all afraid or bothered by him or his poor etiquette. She had eaten the exact same thing, but there wasn’t a spot of mess on her. 

He tried to clean himself up with a paper napkin, but the grease had settled on the hair around his chin. The scars streaked along the left side of his face were stubble-free, but the rest of his face and neck were a mess. In all the panic of the morning, when he had woken up to the unnatural cravings and spent all of his energy trying to remain human until he could get to his coffee, he had forgotten to shave.

“Tonks,” the woman said, startling him out of his head and back into the present.

“What’s that?” he asked. 

“My name,” she said. “I’m Tonks. I thought you should know.”

Even if he should, he didn’t want to know. He wanted to remain as ignorant about her as possible, and at the same time, he had so many questions.

How did she know that he would be trapped in that alley with Hunters hot on his heels? And why would she want to get herself involved? 

The most important thing right now was to keep her as far away from him as possible. But somehow, he felt compelled to talk to her.

“I lost someone,” he said. It hurt to say it out loud, which was why he never talked about it. Briefly, he wondered why he’d even brought it up. He didn’t want anyone’s pity. He pitied himself enough as it was.

She was looking at him as if she knew. She’d known enough that he’d needed his coffee. But if she was expecting him to share his life story with her just because she had scratched the surface, she was wrong.

“Listen, I’d better go…” 

But where? If the Hunters found him, he couldn’t go to wherever he usually went. And from where he was, sitting on a stack of crates, he couldn't see a door. Or windows. If anything, this woman knew how to find a secure hideout.

“Where’d you take us?”

“Someplace safe,” she said. “Where we could talk.”

That was the last thing that he wanted to do. “I don’t think you…” he started, but she interrupted him. 

“I lost someone, too. In the war. He fought at the Battle of Hogwarts, and…”

The woman who called herself ‘Tonks’ ran a hand through her short, spiky hair. It was greenish-brown, but he'd sworn it was blonde back in the coffee shop. Or maybe it was just the light in here, wherever here was.

“So I know about loss, even if I don’t know about your loss,” she said, which sounded fair to him. Her eyes held him in a calm, collected gaze. 

“But here’s what I need you to understand,” she said with much more fervor. “This mark I have that’s connected to you, I know what it is, and I wouldn’t ordinarily care, but you’re about to get yourself killed.”

“It might be for the best,” he said, and then regretted it instantly. The look she gave him could have killed him ten times over.

“What is it about this mark that you do not get?” she asked, her voice rising in pitch. “If you die, the person with the matching mark dies, too. I’ve been trying to track you down for months now, so that I can tell you to get off your arse, quit whatever deathwish or pity party you’ve been attending, and grow a pair. I’m not willing to die because some stranger has low self esteem and nothing to live for. Someone is clearly after you, and if I want to live, I’m going to have to help you stop them.”

He was silent, processing what she had said. 

“How do you know you’ll die… that we’re connected in that way?”

“I did my research after the first panic attack. And I have friends in the Department of Mysteries. Believe me, it wasn’t a fun time.”

Marcus thought briefly back to that very dark time after his wife had passed, where he’d almost found a way to join her, and how something had held him back at the last second. That was before he’d done the Runes translation.

He stared at the mark on his wrist. “I’m sorry,” he said. “At the time, I didn’t know there was someone else connected to this...thing.”

She fixed him with a look. “Don’t do it again. Wow, I’ve been waiting months to say that. It wasn’t as satisfying as I thought it would be. Anyway, if we’re going to get those people off your back, I’m going to need to know a little more about you.”

Suddenly, she was peering at him like she was silently dissecting him, measuring him by some unfathomable scale. Maybe she was waiting for him to say something, like maybe he owed her some kind of explanation for the mark –for turning into a half monster– for simply existing, maybe? Bill had no idea where to start.

Tonks threw her hands in the air in exasperation. “Whatever. I wasn’t asking for your life story. And maybe you’re not ready to talk. I get that. But I was hoping we could skip the part where I stalk you and bail you out of whatever trouble you’ve gotten yourself into over and over again, because that can get old, fast.”

She picked chicken out of her teeth with a sliver of bone and then threw it down onto the paper plate with the rest of the discarded bones. She checked the mark on her arm, which had faded back to a darker flesh color.

“Finally.” Tonks gathered up her trash and put it in the takeaway bag. “It's safe now. We can get out of here.” He hadn’t even seen the rubbish bin, but there it was, and there she was, putting rubbish it as if it were the most natural thing to do: throwing out a takeaway bag in a storage room with no exit. He still didn’t know where they were.

“I get it, you know. You don't need complications in your life, and Merlin knows, neither do I. But here's the thing.”

She stood up and faced him, completely unfazed by the chicken grease, the scarred face, and everything that made him look like a complete wreck in front of her.

“I don’t want to die because of you. Right now, I’m late for work. You figure out why someone is trying to kill you, and we’ll meet up later tonight to discuss things.”

Tonks pulled out an official looking robe from the pouch hanging on her belt. As she slung it over her shoulders, the weight of the Ministry’s authority settled around her. Then she straightened up and held out her hand. “Deal?”

Marcus stared at her hand for an immeasurable beat. Then he shook it. 

“Deal.” The nerves in his arm jerked when her fingers gripped his tightly. 

He ignored it. There was no point. This was not going to happen. He’d figure out how to stay alive, and she’d use her resources to make it happen. Then they’d go their separate ways, pretending that there was still happiness somewhere out in the world. 

And everything would be fine. 

She let go of his hand, rolled a kink out of her shoulders and fixed him with that knowing look she’d used before. When he didn’t react, she chuckled. “It’d be helpful if I knew who I was dealing with.”

My name is Marcus. I am not who I was…

He almost gave her the name that they’d fixed him up with… the cover his friends had created so that he could continue working with them while he laid low. But something about this woman in the Auror’s robe told him that if he led with the lie, she’d find out the truth anyway. His wife, the way she died, everything. 

“Bill,” he heard himself say, and then swore silently at himself for everything else he was about to give away. He didn’t want to get anyone else mixed up in his life, but if they were both going to survive, there was no other way.

“My name’s Bill Weasley.”


	4. 4 Auror's Department

4 Auror’s Office

 

“You’re late.” Williamson hadn’t even looked up from his desk, and he was already giving Tonks a hard time.

“Where’s the fire?” she quipped back. 

He pointed to her desk, covered in files. On Thursdays, the grave emergency was always buried in the mounds of parchment piled on her desk. She kept the rest of her grumbling to herself and sat down to sort it all out. A brief glance at Williamson’s greying ponytail suggested to her that it might be a good idea not to disturb him for a while. The Senior Auror’s job was to give his Junior counterpart a hard time most days, and recently, he’d been doing a stellar job of it.

As he moved a stack of parchment from one side of his desk to the other, Tonks noticed that her piles were twice as large as his.

“Sod it all,” she muttered to herself, kicking at the desk with the toe of her boot. Just because she was a few minutes late, didn’t mean she deserved half of the old goat’s load. She rose angrily from her seat, about to cause a scene, but then she saw the clock over the door and sat back down.

An hour and a half late. Normally, they’d dock her pay for that, but Williamson was granting her leniency for once.

From the other desk, Williamson turned slightly and quirked a bushy eyebrow in her direction. Tonks gave him an inky salute with her quill and started signing off on the closed cases from last week. Then the hard ass got up with a stack of papers from his desk, cutting his “to do” pile in half yet again. He turned to her.

“Found something, did you?”

Tonks jutted out her chin in the affirmative. She wasn’t going to deny anything.

“Wanna talk about it?”

“No,” she grunted, scrawling a messy signature on another case file and slamming it shut.

“You know where to find me,” he said.

Tonks looked up from her stack and locked eyes with her superior. He wasn’t being unkind. He had always supported her circumstances, and he’d granted her space for now. It wouldn’t last forever, but she was going to take what she could get.

“Sure,” she said. “Thanks.”

She tried to smile to let him know she was okay. Williamson gave her a curt nod and made to leave, but first slammed the stack of files on top of her “to do” pile.

Without a word, he strode down the hall to the breakroom. Tonks stared grimly at the new pile of files and wanted to find a suitable name for him that would embody her frustrations, but her issue had never been with Williamson.

Searching for the toerag that had nearly cost her her own life was one thing, but meeting him face to face was entirely another matter. The wrinkled, sagging cheeks and sunken eyes made him look like he belonged in another century, but when he’d transformed, it seemed that he’d been wearing another skin entirely. The dangerously robust creature she’d faced had lost his grey entirely, gaining thick, auburn hair all over. But then if people were after him, it would make sense for him to disguise his real features. 

He’d apologized for almost killing her, which had surprised her. She’d dreamt so many nights about what would happen when she finally found him. She’d wondered if her temper would stay in check, or if she would have ended up pummeling him into the ground for attempting to end her. She probably had no right to judge him when she knew so little. The fact that he was still in danger, practically running for his life from some unknown threat just this morning, made her keep her barbed comments to herself. From what she’d seen of his situation, their lives were still in grave danger, and she was going to have to fix that first before anything else.

In the five minutes she’d been signing closed cases, it had finally sunk in. Her bloody soulmate was real, but the Unspeakables in the Department of Mysteries couldn’t tell her why the mark had appeared on her wrist last year. She didn’t want this. She didn’t know anyone who would. The whole idea of a soulmate was stupid. She’d already loved and lost. Her short time with Remus Lupin had been wonderful, and tragic, and she wasn’t ready to go through any of that ever again. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be ready for anyone else.

And Williamson hadn’t deserved the blow off she’d given him. The old bloke had been with her when she’d suddenly collapsed with no other explanation than a strange glowing red mark that had appeared on her wrist. His quick thinking, rushing her to the Department of Mysteries instead of the emergency ward of St. Mungo’s Hospital, had saved her life. 

The Unspeakables had been able to render the link ‘ineffective’ mostly by putting her into a magical coma to stop the effects of whatever was happening on the other end of the connection. They’d also helped her figure out a way to scry for where the other mark was located, but that was as far as they could help.

Grumbling, she brushed aside the stack of remaining files and did a cursory search through public records for the name that he’d given her. Bill Weasley, son of Molly and Arthur Weasley. Of course she knew Molly and Arthur Weasley, which meant that Bill had likely gone to Hogwarts. She held the picture from his Apparition License up to the light. His face was smooth and matched the lilting voice that she’d grown accustomed to, and of course there were the broad shoulders that she recognized. He seemed familiar, but she couldn’t match his face inside her memories. She would have remembered that smile too, full of promise and way too photogenic for his own good. How had she missed him? She leafed through school records and nodded. Gryffindor. Of course. Damned Gryffindors. 

Well, that answered that question. Remus had been a Gryffindor, but she had excused him for that a long time ago. She’d mostly stayed with her Hufflepuff classmates and rarely made friends outside of her own House in school. But after Hogwarts, she’d befriended Mrs. Weasley. Molly had been the one to convince Remus to give Tonks a chance. In the middle of conflict, in the middle of chaos and corruption and imminent danger, they’d fallen in love and made it work, and he had been worth fighting for. 

Remus had lived with Lycanthropy almost all his life. It had taken Tonks a long time to get through to him and to get him to trust her, and himself. She was familiar with Wolfsbane and how it smelled – as well as how to administer it, and that was why she’d recognized the obvious symptoms in Bill… Marcus... she’d found his alias while snooping through the Gringotts employee listings, and a few other things that were highly interesting to her.

Underneath the bitter circumstances was a curious twist of fate. Coffeeshop bloke and Remus had way too much in common.

This was the part where her mind wanted to slip back to her morning indulgence, the sleek broad shoulders of the man she knew nothing about, except his lovely voice and peculiar taste in breakfast beverages. But that ancient looking face and that hair, well, it had been a convincing disguise, because he hadn't looked anything like a Weasley. She scribbled the name he’d given her on a scrap of parchment and spelled it over to Magical Records Inquiries.

Tonks Vanished the public Weasley records off her desk and went back to signing her closed case files. Maybe there would be more useful information in the Inquiry findings. At the moment, he was just a bloke with strong shoulders and an adventurous smile, and she was just an Auror with resources and a strong will to live. This whole Soulmate thing was simply a Curse of Convenience. The sooner she handled his problems, the sooner they could get on with their separate lives.

She allowed the monotony of the parchment singing to lull her into a mindless daze, and soon enough, the stack had dwindled to a few remaining files, and her head was clear again.

“Thank Merlin for Closed Case Thursdays!”

Tonks looked up to see Williamson’s weathered face peering down at her. In his hand was a small stack of confidential files that he set deliberately on the corner of her desk.

Not in her “to do” pile. Beside it. Her eyes flickered over the labels:

Bill Weasley…

Bill Weasley…

Bill Weasley…

Tonks waited until Williamson was back at his desk before she tore into the first file. Some of the information, she’d figured out for herself. He’d been attacked on June 30th, 1997, by the same werewolf that had attacked Remus: Fenrir Greyback. But because Greyback was in human form at the time of the attack, he hadn’t contracted full-blown Lycanthropy. The St. Mungo’s reports had all come back negative for the active version of the virus.

That had changed. He had transformed right before her eyes – not completely, and it wasn’t the full moon either… and all of that was deeply troubling.

Then Fleur Weasley’s file stopped her in her tracks. The official report concluded that she had been murdered by a werewolf… the date looked strangely familiar, but Tonks couldn’t place it yet. The Auror assigned to the case stated that there was no sign of the husband. Subsequent inquiries stated that his family hadn’t heard from him after the incident.

The family… the Weasleys…

Tonks set down the files and took a slow breath, counting to ten. She hadn’t known Bill, but she had known Molly and Arthur, his parents, who were in the Order with Remus. More recently, Tonks had gotten to know their youngest son, Ronald Weasley, a hot headed Auror trainee, along with Potter, Longbottom, and Bones.

Molly had been like a second mother to her when she needed her the most. Tonks felt ashamed that she hadn’t been there for her when she’d heard talk of the family planning the funeral of their daughter-in-law, and remembered making an excuse not to go because one more funeral would have broken her. She’d clung to the excuse of her job at the Ministry. 

She should go and talk to Molly… and say what? “Hi, I just saw your missing son, his Lycanthropy has been activated and he may have killed his wife… and by the way he’s my soulmate.”

Bollocks.

“You won’t believe this!” 

Richard Savage announced to the mostly empty room. Williamson looked up from his reading, an open case file since Tonks had finished signing all of his closed ones.

“What have you got, Savage?” the Senior Auror asked.

“Our contact just came through with a hit list distributed among the Hunters.”

Tonks groaned. “They’re so cocky that they’re advertising?”

“Hey, I say we don’t knock ‘em”, Savage said. “Last week’s kill shortened our workload considerably. We should send them a cheesecake… and then arrest the lot of them, of course,” he added at Williamson’s pointed glare.

“Who's under their wand this time?” Williamson asked.

Savage leaned over his supervisor’s desk and showed him the report.

“Show this to Tonks,” Williamson said.

“But it’s Closed Case Thursday. She drew the short straw, which means I get the actives today.”

“Show her, now,” Williamson ordered.

Savage tossed the report onto Tonk’s desk. She gave Williamson a questioning look, but the back of his head didn’t respond, so she scanned the names and stopped dead at number one.

Bill Weasley…

Great. This was just great.

Hunters. That’s what he was running from. So far, when the Hunters put a name on their list, the name ended up in the obituaries soon enough, or strange bits of them were found in conspicuous spots around town, (ripped off fingernails that matched the DNA test of so and so put in an envelope and mailed to the Ministry – taunting them that they could do the job better, and faster than the Ministry) and the Aurors had their hands full with everything else, so the rogue group had largely gone unchecked… 

If Bill was on that list and the Hunters succeeded in bringing down their next target, Tonks wouldn’t have to worry about whether her soulmate was a dunderheaded buffoon, because she'd be dead along with him.

Savage had gone off to the breakroom, and Tonks had no idea how to process this information. 

“Time’s up, Tonks,” Williamson said from his desk. He swiveled his chair around and met her, glare to glare.

“I’m all ears.”


	5. Gringotts Bank

5 Gringotts Bank

 

Bill came through the back employee entrance of Gringotts Wizarding Bank, dodging around the goblins who were lining up for their cash drawers for the first shift. He was late – very late as a matter of fact – Curse-Breaker hours began several hours earlier than banking hours. Sometimes they worked far later than banking hours, too.

The pay was worth it.

When he got to the security checkpoint, there was a new goblin holding the clipboard that he’d never seen before.

“Where’s Slamhammer?” Bill asked.

The goblin peered up at him from above his spectacles. “Security badge?” he asked.

Ah, one of those. Bill produced his badge to the goblin. The picture matched the make-up job Nash’s cousin had done on him and the Glamour Charms he had to use so that he wouldn’t be recognized by anyone that knew him. He was grateful to the bank for keeping him on, but the hoops he had to jump through every day to maintain the disguise were tiresome.

The goblin took his time examining the badge, as if he’d never seen one before.  
“It’s Chancey,” he offered, pointing to his name on the clipboard.

“I can read,” the goblin said curtly.

Bill could see partially through the glass viewing wall that Ogden and Kettleburn were wrestling with a metal box on a pedestal that was shooting fiery sparks everywhere. It was entirely too familiar.

“The curse is causing problems,” the goblin said. “It got by security, but when Slamhammer picked it up, it started shooting sparks everywhere.”

It was the box from last year, the one that had given him the mark. They’d put the highest security on that box, or so he’d thought.

“No one should be handling that box. Why is it even out of the security vault?” Bill asked worriedly.

“We’ve got a buyer,” the goblin shrugged.

“Is he okay?” Bill asked. “Slamhammer?”

“Lost all the hair on his right arm. Claims he’s seeing double.”

“Ouch,” Bill said. “I hope that’s temporary.”

He could now see his team through the viewing glass, jumping out of the way of the sparks and casting Merlin-knew-what back at the box to get it to stop.

“Can you hurry up, they’re dying in there!” Bill said impatiently. Behind the glass, Ogden dodged another blast.

Finally, the goblin started reciting the security spell to release the wards. As impatient as he was, Bill knew better than to step over the line until the wards were completely down. Goblin magic was unforgiving. Nash caught sight of him through the glass – he winced as sparks flew by and pointed to Bill, using the universal sign for ‘hurry your arse up’.

“Wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t been so late,” the goblin said, handing him his badge back.

Bill peered at the goblin’s brass plated name tag to see who was giving him such a hard time.

“Smashwithfeet,” the goblin said, translating his name.

“I can read Runes,” Bill said irritably.

By the time he’d gotten past the security line, the danger was over. Kettleburn was still smoking from the close encounter.

“You’re late,” she said, patting down her hair with a damp towel.

“You noticed,” Bill said. 

“We finally contained it, “ Nash said, lifting the top of the box off the floor with gold-plated tongs.

“Did anyone get hit?” Bill asked.

“Nope. We got the sparks to stop flying, but then some sort of fire-liquid started spilling out of it. I don’t recall that happening last time.”

Bill went over to the box and stared at it. It had been a year, and he still didn’t know the first thing about what had activated it, or why it had activated on him, specifically.

“Wait, “ he said as Nash was about to cover the box with a large, silver hex-cancelling cloth. Bill Summoned a piece of parchment and used a Copy-Me spell to transfer the Runes from the top of the box to the parchment. Then he rolled it up and stuffed it into his robe. Now that he’d met her, a second look at the Soulmate runes was in order. Maybe he’d find a way this time that he hadn’t seen before to get rid of those marks.

Once the box was safely wrapped up, Smashwithfeet came into the room and took the box away, grumbling about useless assets and angry clients.

“You’re welcome!” Kettleburn called out. “Rude little devil!” she said, and then addressed Bill. “We could have used you this morning.” 

Bill followed his team into the debriefing room where his coworkers changed out of their singed robes and into fresh ones. Around the conference table, they debriefed him on their morning progress, and he told them about his morning, as well and the reason why he was late: the sudden transformation, and the people hunting him.

“I don’t know what to do,” he admitted.

“You can let us help you,” Kettleburn suggested.

“You are helping me,” Bill said. “The new identity, renting a flat, Walter’s brother helping out with the Glamour charms for the disguise. You’ve all been helping for over a year.”

“But this is new,” Ogden said. 

“Not new in a good way.” It was the first time his body had lost control since he’d started taking his morning coffee.

Ogden and Nash, two of the most adept Antidote Masters, a keen, but little known subset of the Potions Masters Guild, had concocted a variant on Wolfsbane – but because Wolfsbane was so highly regulated within the Ministry and the Werewolf registry was still in place, Bill couldn’t get a legal supply without the Ministry knowing all about him.

That’s where Marge Kettleburn came in. She used to work for the Ministry's Smuggling Intervention Department and had gotten them both a line and a distributor through the Erised Cafe.

Ogden and Nash had hinted that there was hush money involved. Bill had stayed out of it since he was technically ‘missing’, but he wished he could at least use some of his pay to help them finance his freedom. His whole team had put so much effort into his alter identity, making sure Gringotts still had him – in some form – on their payroll without skipping a beat. He couldn’t risk transferring funds to any of them. He promised himself that he would pay them back, one day.

He owed them all, heavily.

“There’s someone after me,” he said. It’s not in my imagination. I mean, my senses were tingling and everything, and then they were just there.”

“Who were they?” Nash pressed.

Bill didn't want to say the word ‘Hunters’, because that seemed overly dramatic, but he had to tell his mates the truth after all they'd done for him. “I don’t know, but they meant serious business. They were acting like they wanted me dead.”

“Anyone have any clues?” Kettleburn asked.

No one did.

“Well, I’ve got to get my morning tea. Skipped out on it, what with your tardiness.” Kettleburn nudged Bill playfully as she left the room. She didn’t mean her jab to be hurtful.

“Marge and her tea,” Nash chuckled.

“There’s something else,” Bill said when Kettleburn was out of earshot. He didn’t like discussing this bit in front of her, because she tended to get all sentimental over something that was clearly mucking up his life. He had to tell someone, and he owed these blokes his life anyway.

“I found her,” he said dejectedly, and proceeded to fill them in on how he had met the woman who was also an Auror, who bore the same mark on her wrist as was on his.

Ogden whistled. “An Auror! She must be fit!”

“She’s got green hair,” he said, remembering how it had changed from violet to a vibrant pink, and then later green when they’d had their ‘talk’.

Nash snorted. “A hag. Just your luck.” 

“You two are worse than Kettleburn!” Bill muttered. Then he told Ogden and Nash what Tonks had said – that they were linked through their lives, and because of him, she’d nearly lost hers. “It confirms the translation from the box. I had hoped it wasn’t true.”

This time Nash whistled, but not in a good way. “That is real bad luck. What are you going to do?”

Bill didn’t know. He didn’t want anyone to die because of him. 

Last year, he’d been in the Hospital for two weeks. The first week was for a nasty burn from one of their missions, which was customary for any Curse-Breaker, and the second week was when his team had found him gagging on the hospital floor after taking an overdose of potions not meant for himself. His team had given him the what for after that – he was needed, he was valuable, he deserved to live – and they deserved to not be left behind. They’d harped on him for a long, long time, until finally, he had almost started believing it himself.

The alarm on the wall started blaring, and all of them groaned. Nash checked the bulletin board where a new slip of parchment appeared and tacked itself on top of all the other slips. “Someone set off another curse in sector seven.” 

Kettleburn came rushing back into the room. “Seven? Where’s that?”

“Dartmoor. In Devon. I bet someone tipped over the Beardown Man again.”

Sector Seven wasn’t part of Gringotts’ treasure recovery territories. It was maintenance work. There wasn’t anything of value there, but it didn’t keep people from snooping around the sacred land of the pixies. 

That was a nasty pile of hexes. 

It didn’t matter what the Ministry classified them as. Pixies were sentient, and vengeful as anything. The last bloke who had disturbed the stones in their territory was covered in boils and had grown horns – some inside joke on the part of the pixies – and it had taken two days to reverse the damage.

As the alarm continued to blare, his coworker was passing out the portkeys for Dartmoor, and the return portkeys so they could get back when either their work was done, or they had to escape. Either outcome was a possibility in this line of work.

Bill hoisted himself to his feet. He usually enjoyed his job, risking his life and living on the edge. Except now, he was risking two lives every time he went on a mission. That was going to make it a lot harder for him to do a job that required a safety waiver and included hazard pay.

“Cover me,” he said to Nash before he took his portkey. “I’m not feeling one hundred percent today, and I don’t want to do anything stupid.”

Nash nodded, understanding completely.

Bill couldn’t be responsible for someone else’s death. Not ever again.


	6. 6 Department of Mysteries

6 Department of Mysteries

 

Near the end of her Closed Case Thursday, Tonks spent an hour talking with Williamson, giving him the breakdown of her morning with Weasley. Savage sat idly at his desk, eating another pastry someone had brought into the breakroom that morning, adding to his late-middle aged paunch. The bloke wasn’t going to age gracefully if he kept that up. Williamson was constantly jabbing him on that point.

The cheap quill nib broke under pressure as she signed the last of the files. But next Thursday, it’d be pastry-gut’s turn, and she’d be the one on active call. She stopped to replace the nib and saw someone in the hall – broad shouldered, trim waist – yeah, she had a type, who didn’t? His face was unrecognizable. He was worse-looking than the disguised bloke she’d spent the morning with, and that said something. Tonks got back to work.

“Who’s that git?” Savage asked. Tonks shut her last file. The bloke had come into their area, tentatively tapping his fingers together. He looked lost, but also looked like ‘not her problem’.

“Don’t know him,” she said, about to finish the last file, but then she made eye contact with lost-bloke and instantly felt like she should know him.

“Wait.”

Tonks threw the quill on her desk, hearing the crack of another cheap nib as it hit the desk. She met broadsholder’s eyes and then walked right past him down the hallway. Just as she suspected, he followed her, a few paces back, all the way into the breakroom. Tonks scanned the room and then brushed by him to close the door. They were alone.

She went right up to him, staring intently. She didn’t know this face, but…

He absentmindedly rubbed at his wrist.

“Show me, “ she said.

He lifted up his wrist, showing her the mark.

She grimaced. “You look terrible.”

“I came straight from work,” he explained. "I received a very demanding owl from your man, Williamson, requesting my presence as soon as was convenient. The alternate identity that allows me to keep working at Gringotts isn’t cheap. I'm risking a lot to come here." 

"No kidding," Tonks said. "Don't worry, I’m not going to destroy you.” She gave him a pointed look. “Follow me.”

They took the lift down to the main level of the Ministry, crossed the Atrium and went down a long corridor with a security witch guarding the door at the end. 

“He’s with me,” Tonks said to her, and the witch let them both pass.

Once past security, Tonks led him to a service lift. The lift operator looked surprised to see her, and doubly surprised when she ordered him to “get out”.

They entered the lift, Tonks closed the gate and pushed a grey button. She grasped the rail as the lift lurched and began moving slowly downwards.

“So, Bill Weasley. You look different,” she said.

“The Glamour Charms don’t last more than ten hours. It’s been a long day, and the full effect is slipping. But it’ll hold for another hour, at least.”

The lift opened to a dark corridor with black-tiled walls and a plain black door at the far end of a hall dimly lit with blueish-white torches. Tonks went straight for the door.

“Pre-Authorization From Head Auror Robards,” she announced. “That’s my boss’s boss,” she explained to Bill, whose face had begun to take on a sagging, misshapen appearance.

They ended up in a circular room, lit by candles with blue flames.

A strange voice echoed around them. “Love Chamber, by authorization of…”

Tonks grimaced at the announcement, not wanting to see Bill’s expression. “Sorry,” she said. “It was the only classification that fit.”

The door opened to a plain, grey-toned room. It had three chairs around a small, low table which had a mini-table fountain on it. 

Bill and Tonks went inside and the door automatically closed behind them.

“Unspeakable Bode,” the old man said, appearing before them in long white robes. “This is my assistant, Unspeakable Throbber. Please sit.”

Tonks and Bill chose the two chairs opposite each other. She didn’t trust Unspeakables, as a rule, but Bode had been one of the wizards who had helped save her life, so she had to give him some credit.

Bode instantly addressed Bill.

“May I see the marks?”

Bill and Tonks turned up their wrists and put them on the table.

Side by side, they were identical – mirror images of each other with Bill sitting across from her.

“Uncanny,” Bode whispered. He waved his wand, muttering while the other Unspeakable made notes on a small pad.

They must have stayed there for at least half an hour, until finally Bode spoke again. “Highly interesting. Never seen a matching pair in person before.” He got out a camera and started snapping pictures.

Tonks was growing impatient.

“I am familiar with the circumstances under which Ms. Tonks acquired her mark, and the subsequent emergency hex-freezing we did on her behalf. I am interested in how you happened upon yours, Mister….”

“I was hit by a curse,” Bill said, impressing Tonks by both avoiding his own identification and getting the Unspeakable undivided attention. The old Unspeakable sat down in the empty chair while the younger assistant began furiously scribbling in his notebook.

“Do continue,” Bode said.

“We were in the outer limits of Mysuru, containing an ancient burial site. That’s what we do. I’m a Curse-Breaker.”

Bode’s eyebrows rose, and a silent “ah” formed on his lips.

“Ogden and Kettleburn were holding up shields and Nash had just taken the lid off a stone box covered in Runes. It was shooting a hot-white light into the air. We were all going to burn up, so I reached over the box and put the lid back on.”

“And that’s when the mark appeared?”

“Well, I can’t be sure,” Bill said. “My arm was burnt up pretty badly after that. I spent a week in St. Mungo’s regrowing the skin.”

Bode looked at Tonks. “You were in traumatic shock for how long?”

“Three hours, until you fixed it,” Tonks said.

“Hmm,” Bode murmured. “That doesn’t seem to correlate.”

Bill turned to Tonks. “When did your marks appear?”

“Last year.”

“What was the date?”

“Twenty-fourth of May,” Bode said.

“That’s a week later,” Bill said. “When I tried to poison myself.”

The room fell silent. 

“I’m sorry, “ he said, “I didn’t know. I’d just healed enough, they were going to discharge me and I didn’t have anywhere to go. I nicked a vial meant for someone else and thought if I could just make it all go away and end it – I only got half of it down before my whole body froze up. They found me an hour later – like I was in a body-bind curse or something.”

Bode nodded. “That’s approximately what the Interruption Hex is meant to do. It managed to save both of your lives.”

“I guess you’re the person I should thank for that?”

Bode pointed to his assistant, who had stopped scribbling. “It was Throbber’s idea that saved you. He is also responsible for correctly classifying these marks. You say you were in Mysuru, that’s southern India?”

Bill nodded.

“Makes sense. There are several belief systems in that area that incorporate the idea of an eternal soul. You must have uncovered a very powerful artifact.”

“We couldn't break it,” Bill confessed. “It’s still in the protected vault in Gringotts.”

Bode nodded. “That’s a good place for it.”

“So, what do we need? Can you get a translation of the box?” Tonks asked.

Bill brought out a scroll. “Got it. But I’m afraid it won't’ do any good.”

Bode took the scroll, unrolled it and scanned its contents. “He’s right. All it did was confirm what Throbbers has already determined.”

“Which is?” Tonks as getting impatient. 

“It's a very strong, very ancient magic. Excellent Runes translation, by the way/”

“Thanks,” Bill said.

“And?” Tonks insisted.

“It’s irreversible.”

Tonks glared at Bill. “So this is your fault? Sorry,” she said. “Of course it isn’t your fault. But if I die from this…” she didn’t know how to finish that threat, so she let it go.

“There are several methods we can try, but none of them are guaranteed.”

“Do it,” Tonks said. Bill nodded in agreement.

Bode and Throbber held their wands over the two marks. “We tried this on Ms. Tonks, but it wasn’t effective on just the one mark.”

Both of them pointed white streams of light at the marks.

It burned. Tonks tried to hold still, and Bill’s brow beaded with sweat.

Finally, after she didn’t think she could take anymore, Bode called a stop to it. “That’s all we can do.”

Tonks looked at their wrists. The skin was pink and angry, but the marks were still bright and clear. The procedure had hurt like hell, but she’d go through all kinds of pain to get that thing off of her and be done with it.

“Do it again,” she said.

Bode shook his head. “Any more of that particular spell, and you’ll both be dead, or missing one arm. We've been looking into this for almost a year. Everything, including the translation that your partner provided, points to the undeniable conclusion that this is a permanent arrangement.”

Tonks swore up a storm holding her wrist. “Stupid curse!” She didn’t even care that Bill was standing right there or that he looked worried for her and it might not be so bad being linked to him forever. But she had her principles. One of them happened to be making her own choices about things. Which, when she thought about it, made her go into another rant of foul mouthed expletives. 

Unspeakable Throbbers cleared his throat. 

“What?” Tonks spat out aggressively.

“I just wanted to mention that, according to these Runes, the Soul-Mate Marks aren’t meant as a curse. According to the notes on this translation, it was never meant as a punishment. In times of deepest emotional stress, the ancients believed the marks to be a blessing, offering hope and healing to the afflicted. It's actually supposed to be a good thing.”

“But he’s not my soulmate. I already had… and he’s gone!” Tonks was visibly angry. “No offense, Bill,” she muttered.

“None taken,” he said. “Believe me. I feel the same way.”

"What do we do now?" Tonks asked.

Bode rose from his seat, peering at her over his spectacles. “I suggest you learn to live with it, and each other.” The Unspeakable turned to Bill sympathetically. “Good luck to you, Sir.”

Tonks scowled.

On their way up in the lift, Tonks frowned. “I’m sorry about how I acted in there. I just thought that after all this time, there’d be a way out of this.”

“I understand.”

“I mean, I’m an Auror, and you’re a Curse-Breaker. Just from our jobs alone, we could be putting each other in danger every single day. Oh, umm… Bill? Your face is slipping.”

Bill touched his sagging cheek as the lift stopped at the Ministry’s Atrium level. “The Glamour Charm is wearing off. I can’t go out there like this.”

“Here, let me.” Tonks did her best effort at a Glamour Charm. When she was done, Bill’s nose was a little crooked, and he’d grown buck teeth, but he wouldn’t be recognizable, even to his own mother.

“That’ll have to do,” she said. “I’ve never been great with Charms.”

Bill looked at his reflection in the glass panels and grimaced.

“Sure,” he said. “Let’s go.”

But as Tonks walked him out of the Ministry and led him to the safe apparition point, the hairs on the back of her neck prickled.

“Bill, “ she said. “ I think we’re about to…”

She didn’t finish her sentence, interrupted by a flash of red light that hit the wall beside her. “Duck!” she yelled, and went into defense mode.

Three black robed figures had come out of nowhere. She hadn’t heard any apparition cracks, so they must have been waiting for them beyond the wards of the Ministry.

Her wrist stung. They were after Bill.

She tapped her wand three times on her ear and said, “Williamson, Code Red. I need backup.”

She was grateful that they were so close to the Ministry, because her team apparated at once with two loud cracks. Williamson stunned one, while Savage aimed spells at the other two. Tonks covered Bill, and they ducked behind a rubbish bin.

Tonks heard two resounding cracks echo through the alley. Then silence.

When she and Bill rose from their cover, they found Williamson and Savage standing over the still form of the third attacker.

“Hit his head on the bricks going down,” Williamson reported.

“Dead?” Tonks asked.

“Gets worse,” Savage said.

“How can he be worse than dead?” she asked.

“This is Goyle, Senior,” Savage said.

Tonks blinked. “Wasn’t he reported dead last month after the Hunters got to him?”

“Yep,” Savage said. “Now he’s dead twice.”


	7. 7 St. Mungo's Hospital

7 St. Mungo’s Hospital

It was late… early… whatever. Bill had been at St. Mungo’s for longer than he thought was necessary, with a bandaged leg that was mostly only bruised from falling on the ground to take cover – not his brightest dueling move. The Healers had done all sorts of tests to confirm his identity as well, and they’d put him in a recovery room that had a large glass window overlooking the Intensive Care hallway, so he figured that his hiding days were over. Two guards flanked his door outside, for protection – whose, he wasn’t sure yet. 

His Glamour Charms had worn off completely, realigning his nose and fixing whatever other ailment Tonks the Auror-Not-Charms-Expert had inflicted on him. He probably looked terrible, and smelled worse. He was now left with a highly recognizable ‘Bill Weasley’ face, and wishing that the window from the hallway to his not-so-private room wasn’t so large or smudge-free. He was afraid that if he got up to pull the blinds, someone would recognize him and call the authorities.

He hadn’t been arrested yet, so either that was a good sign, or Tonks was pulling more strings. Admittedly, she was good at what she did. Whatever her true motives were, (he really couldn’t be certain about anything right now) he was glad she wasn't actively working against him.

The door opened and someone slid something across the bed table in his direction. At first, he didn't look up, but when no one moved for at full minute, he finally lifted his head. He was surprised to find a large cardboard coffee cup sitting in front of him, smelling faintly of Wolfsbane.

“You’re gonna need it. It’s almost six o’clock.”

Tonks stood with one hand on her hip. Her meaning didn't escape him. This was his morning coffee appointment time, and no one wanted him to succumb to another transformation if it could be avoided. 

“So that’s your real face?” she asked. “It’s much better than that horrid disguise. You look like a Weasley now.”

“You look like you always did,” he said. He hadn’t recognized her before, but now that he’d spent just about the whole night with her, he’d begun to remember a girl with spiked, colored hair at Hogwarts, a few years under him. He hadn’t known much about her then, and he still didn’t know much now. She was up a few points on him, having known how to get his special coffee order.

Bill palmed the cup and let the warmth seep into his hands through the cardboard. The feel of the smooth, wax-lined surface was familiar and comforting. He didn’t ask her how she knew about the Wolfsbane potion. If she’d found out where he worked, she could find out practically anything. 

“I had your order practically memorized, having stood behind you for weeks and hearing you give it to the barista.“ Tonks told him.

“Why didn't you say anything, if you knew about me?” Bill sipped the coffee. He didn’t feel out of control at the moment, and he wanted desperately for it to stay that way. 

“I didn't know you had the other mark. I only knew that whoever had it was closeby. I figured that if I kept going there, eventually I'd run into them. And here we are.”

“I meant the Wolfsbane. Why didn't you report me?”

“You’re not the only one who needs Wolfsbane off the books.”

Bill let that information settle over him as he watched Mediwitches and Healers pass each other down the hall. A bloke with crutches stumbled after them, not having mastered his coordination with the walking aide. Then his fears materialized at the end of the hall. A familiar face spotted him immediately.

Hermione Granger nearly dropped a stack of files, bringing her hands up to her face as she spotted him through the glass. She tried to strong arm her way closer, but the guards had caught on and wouldn't let her. She locked eyes with Bill, seeking silent answers. 

He hadn't seen anyone he knew in a long time, besides his coworkers, who knew more than anyone, how to keep secrets.

Bill stared down at his coffee. “Please,” he said. “Don't let her tell my Mum. I'm not ready for that.”

“I’ll deal with her,” Tonks said, and left the room. 

Through the window, he watched the Auror exchange words with the Ministry Official. He winced as the two women argued heatedly. Then Hermione finally punctuated whatever she was saying with a stomp of her foot. The soundproof glass didn't leak any words, but they were clearly mad at each other. Tonks appeared to be yelling, and then suddenly she stuck out her hand.

Hermione paused, and they shook. Then the bouncy-haired brunette gathered up her spilled files and left without another look. 

Tonks came back into the room and pulled the shade down over the window. ”Word got out about you. She didn't believe it until she saw for herself. They thought you were dead for the better part of a year. I told her that we just found out and you need more time, but they don't understand.”

They meant more than just Hermione Granger.

“I did what I had to. I don't have to explain it to anyone.”

How could he? He could barely understand it himself. One minute, he was on the doorstep of his house, and the next thing he remembered, he was standing in his living room with hairy palms while staring down at his wife in a pool of her own blood.

"You're right about that," Tonks said. "It's hard to explain to people that the reason you need space is because you can't explain what you're feeling to anyone, not even to yourself. Not until it settles. And sometimes, it never settles."

She really did understand. Sometimes Bill forgot that Tonks had gone through her own pain, similar to his own. Pain was a funny thing. Sometimes when the memories wouldn't leave him alone, all he wanted was for them to go away so he wouldn't have to feel it. But sometimes he wished that the past would consume him, and that all the suffering he went through was never going to be enough.

Bill's gaze fixated on a spot in the distance, beyond the four white walls of the hospital room. He stared into nothing, letting it empty him. It was easier not to think that way.

Something sharp scraped across his arm, and he reflexively jerked away. Tonks was wiping the tip of her wand with medical gauze. She stuffed it, along with some of his blood, into a small glass jar.

“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded.

“Giving you space,” Tonks said. She swished her wand at his arm, and the scratch disappeared.

Bill felt his anger rising. Even though it was going to happen eventually, he had at least wanted a say in when he was going to have to face the truth. “You had no right to do that. Did Granger put you up to it?” He was almost yelling now, but he didn’t care. As much as he owed her for all that she had done for him so far, this was not her business.

“It was my idea. I offered her evidence so she could work your case. All she wants is what's best for you. You're her brother in law, you're family. And even if you weren't, she'd still try to protect you. Look, she promises not to tell anyone that she saw you, not even Ron. For now.”

Hermione’s husband, Bill’s youngest and most stubborn of all his brothers, would be here in a heartbeat, giving Bill an earful, dragging him through all the misery he’d put his parents through since his disappearance. Knowing that Hermione and Ron shared everything, she wouldn't be able to keep quiet for long. And that meant his mother would eventually show up. Bill tried not to think of the hell he'd put his family through by running away. 

Tonks was right, though. She’d done her homework, or she wouldn’t have been able to send Hermione Granger away with a handful of words.

Then there was the matter of the blood sample. Tonks still held the untested evidence in her hand.

“Even if the test comes back positive, it still might not be your fault. Cases like this go through the Wizengamot all the time. There are protections…”

Bill hated that word. “What if I don’t want protection?”

The look she gave him made him realize how stupid and selfish that sounded. The war had just ended. People had died, one of his brothers included, and many others that shouldn’t have. It was hard to lose friends and family, doubly so if it was a tragedy like his wife, Fleur.

Someone knocked on the door, making Bill jump out of his chair. Tonks peered around the window shade and let out a breath of relief. She greeted the Auror’s aide and took the parchment he handed to her. Bill watched her tear it open, her eyes busily scanning it – then she sat down on the bed, her legs suddenly unable to hold her up.

“What is it?” Bill asked. He had become used to Tonks' no-nonsense demeanor, so seeing this unbalanced side of her had him shaken.

Tonks shuffled the papers around and froze. “The autopsy report came in for Goyle Senior. He was a werewolf.”

“How…” Bill was shook. 

“The Hunters claimed to have killed him last month. They sent a sample of his left pinky to the Auror’s Office in a jar. His body was missing the pinky, but he’s only been dead for a few hours. Oh, this is interesting. His Gringotts account is completely drained. Someone cleared it out in one lump sum before his first death. Also, he was only recently turned.”

Bill’s attention peaked. “How recently?”

“The virus only was in his system for a few weeks, as far as they can tell from the tests. But there was something else. The autopsy also showed that Goyle had signs of shifting into his lycanthropic form just as he died.”

“That’s not right. The full moon’s not for another two weeks.”

“You transformed in the middle of the day,” Tonks stated. “When I first met you, in the alley.”

“Half. I’m only half…”

It had been the man, Fenrir Greyback, not the terrifying, transformed werewolf version of him that had attacked Bill. The initial tests had shown that he carried the virus, but it wasn’t active. Until it was, and then his world had fallen apart. Bill didn’t know what he was capable of anymore.

Bill thought about what this meant. “Greyback’s still in Azkaban, right?”

Tonks nodded. “Where are you going with this?”

“I don’t know. Why would they want me dead when they wanted Goyle alive?”

“Maybe they don’t want you dead,” Tonks said carefully. The phrase ‘worse than dead’ popped into Bill’s head, and it sent shivers down his spine.

She put a hand on his arm from across the table. “Whatever you think you are, you’re not a monster. That thing inside of you is a virus… a shadow… a parasite… it’s not anything to do with you, who you are, what you stand for.”

“How can you be so calm about this?” He wanted to pull away from her touch, but it had been so long since he’d had anyone show any type of kindness towards him that he just let it go.

“Your parents, and some of your brothers were in the Order. But you weren’t, were you?”

“No. I’m a Curse-Breaker. We did our own part in the war, but we weren’t directly involved like they were.”

“Then you didn’t know my husband.”

“No.” Bill had heard his family talk about the Order, but he couldn’t recall a ‘Tonks’ anyone, or a Mr. Tonks. 

“Remus was a full werewolf, not the half-thing that you have going on. Three days of the full moon. Total change. Everything.”

Bill knew that name. Remus Lupin had visited him in the hospital shortly after Bill’s own attack. He’d also heard that Remus had died in the Battle at Hogwarts. So yeah, they’d both lost someone.

“I’m sorry,” he said, knowing deep down how trivial those words were, and how much he was going to hate hearing them coming from everyone else.

“You don’t have to…” Tonks closed her eyes and breathed in and out, slowly. “It’s okay, the thing that you have. It doesn’t make you an outcast. It doesn’t make you a murderer.”

“But what if I am?”

“I don’t think you are. Believe me, I’ve met the type.” 

She got up from the table, saving him from trying to respond to all of that. The jar was in her hand, and she was going to turn it in. “I’m gonna let you have that space now. I’ll be back in an hour.”

When Tonks closed the door, Bill crumpled the paper cup into a tight ball and threw it at the window. Then he kicked the end of the bed with his unbandaged foot, which he instantly regretted. He’d always known that someday he’d have to face up to the truth – but he wasn’t ready for it to be today.

What if he had killed Fleur? How could he go on living, knowing that he’d killed the one person he’d loved the most? 

The nightmare was still fresh in his mind. Skin shredded, blood everywhere – 

All he could think about was how dangerous he was to people – how, if he had done something this terrible to Fleur, then he needed to be put away. He’d used the portkey from his Curse-Breaking kit to Apparate straight into the security vault in Gringotts, the safest place he could think of.

Thankfully, the kit also contained emergency rations and water – so Bill stayed huddled in the dark, waiting for his transformation to take him over so he could rip himself apart out of grief. But the transformation never came, and his sleep was riddled with horrific images that woke him in cold sweat and salty tears.

It had taken three days for his team to locate him.

Once they got him fed and watered, fixed up with a new identity, and he was basically on the mend, it didn’t matter. His wife was still dead, and he was still a prime suspect. 

If they proved his guilt, how could he go on?

Bill sat and stared at the blank spot on the wall, sinking deep within himself, trying to forget everything again. Trying to find the place inside him where there was no more pain.


	8. 8 Interrogation Room #5

8 Interrogation Room #5

It was an inside joke within the Auror’s Department, but nothing she could say was going to lighten Bill’s mood.

There were only four interrogation rooms. The Auror’s conference room had been placed at the end of the hall, and most times after a harsh meeting led by Head Auror Robards, everyone felt like they had been interrogated. The most secure room within the heart of the Auror’s Department was the best place to wait for the results from his blood test. 

Which, by the way, was taking longer than Tonks expected. The Hospital Laboratory had just gotten an influx of Transylvanian Flu samples and had been put on the clock to produce as much vaccine from it as possible. Moving Bill out of St. Mungo’s made sense anyway, just in case someone let slip to the wrong people that he had been there. He wasn’t in any shape to deal with a three ring circus that was the belligerent press, ready to pin a werewolf attack on a bloke who wasn’t even a full werewolf.

Bill wasn’t in any shape to deal with anything, period. Once he was aware that they were going to test his blood against his wife’s crime scene evidence, he’d basically sunk so far into himself that he’d stopped talking.

Tonks was worried for him. She could blame herself all day long for not being with her husband at the Battle of Hogwarts, looking out for him, not fighting at his side, but at the end of the day, the hex that had taken him down was not from her wand. Remus Lupin’s death was unequivocally not her fault. 

If she was in Bill’s position, if by some chance, there was any way to prove that she had been directly responsible for killing her husband, she surely would have lost her mind.

Fighting with Bill Weasley against the prejudices of his condition and the questionable evidence that made him look responsible for murder was giving her the chance to make things right, even if it was only within herself.

She led him down the long hall, past the four interrogation rooms, to the long room at the end. At the door, she dismissed the guards – Bill wasn’t going anywhere – each step he took was a reluctant stagger, as if she was leading him to his execution. She transfigured the long table into a couch and chairs to make the space more comfortable for him.

Then she sat him down.

“Hungry?” she asked. It was nearly ten in the morning, and they’d been up all night. Surely, he needed something.

No answer.

“Thirsty?”

Nothing.

“Tired? I could get you a blanket.” 

Bill just sat, staring at nothing.

He had basically shut down. Tonks remembered with a tight pang in her chest how Remus would sometimes act after a particularly bad transformation. The times when he’d been unusually destructive in his were-form, he’d come out of it morose and apologetic, and stupidly try to create unnecessary distance between them in a futile effort to run her off. But that never worked. She would just wait it out until he came around and let her close to him again. It was hard for Remus to accept comfort and affection when he was at his lowest moments – the moments when he felt so strongly that he didn’t deserve any kind of comfort or anyone’s affection.

Looking at this man, she read the hollowness behind his eyes, longing to be anywhere but here. Longing to go back and change the unchangeable. 

She still didn’t believe that he killed his wife – definitely not on purpose at the very least – and by the way that he must have loved her, it was possible that he hadn’t done it by accident either.

From the personal experiences she’d had with Remus’s were-form, she could attest to the uncanny sense of recognition and sudden awareness that a werewolf can have when confronted with a human that he knew and cared about. It was one of the arguments they’d used against Greyback's defense team who claimed that werewolves have no sense of awareness after the transformation. Like hell, they didn’t.

Which was also why she didn’t buy into the details of Bill's story. He’d gone home, and then he’d blacked out. Afterwards, he couldn’t remember the attack at all, and only knew it had happened when he’d seen his wife’s body. 

Maybe it was the Wolfsbane keeping the human consciousness intact, but Remus had always been aware during, and especially after his transformations. Not only could Tonks see the reasoning behind his eyes during the full moon, but afterwards, he’d always been able to recall everything about the nights he spent in his Were form, and he never, ever blacked out. Even on the nights where the Wolfsbane hadn’t been effective, or in those rare cases when they didn’t have any, Remus still remembered everything, even when he wasn’t in control. She was taking a gamble by exposing Bill to the blood testing, but one way or the other, they all needed to know for certain what had happened.

And she’d stand with him either way. She couldn't be there with Remus, but she could be here for Bill. He would get whatever support she could give him. Especially if he didn’t want it, because that meant he needed it more than ever.

Bill was still staring at nothing in the corner when there was a tap on the door.

Outside, through the glass wall, Williamson wore his Official Auror face. He held a small file between his fingertips, looking damned near unreadable.

“Give me something before I open this door, you arse,” she whispered under her breath. It was tense enough waiting around for the verdict, but then Williamson was always like this. He never gave anything away, depositing the evidence and retreating before the fallout happened.

Coward!

She opened the door, and Williamson’s gaze shifted to Bill and then back to her. “Just a heads up. They’re coming for a statement.”

When the door closed, Tonks was acutely aware that she was holding Bill’s sanity in her hands. Up until this moment, she thought she could turn off her own feelings and just deal with whatever came down the line. But seeing Bill like that – completely unwilling to acknowledge anyone or anything – even before the results came in – having given up all hope of a positive outcome – was heartbreaking.

Tonks almost couldn't bring herself to open the file. Part of her was already thinking up crazy scenarios where she could sneak him out of the Ministry, steal a portkey and whisk him out of the country. Anything less than a full pardon would break him – and she suddenly didn’t want to be any part of that.

But it was too late. Here she was, laboratory results in hand, the very thing that would tip the scales for the broken man in front of her. If she didn’t reveal it to him, then someone far less sympathetic, like Williamson, would. 

“Okay, here we go,” she said. 

Bill still hadn't moved. Hadn’t blinked. Tonks sat down, took a deep breath, and opened the file.

The test results were circled in bright red marker, with the letters ‘undisputable’ scrawled on the top and bottom of the parchment.

“He’s not… Bill!” She stood up and grabbed his shoulder. “Bill, oh my Merlin! It wasn’t you!”

Bill didn’t respond with anything but closing his eyes.

Tonks waited a full beat, but there wasn’t any indication that he’d even heard her.

“You didn’t do it.”

Still nothing. It was like talking to a wall.

“You’re not listening. You didn’t do it. The test came back negative. Your blood wasn’t anywhere at the crime scene. Your prints… fingerprints, footprints… wand residue… nothing was on her body or anywhere around it. Believe me, they test these things very carefully. If it was you, they’d have come up here by now and I’d be fighting off a whole lot more than Hermione Granger and the waves of misplaced self pity rolling off your shoulders!”

She squeezed herself between the wall and his chair to see his face, trying again to get his attention. 

“Bill,” she said. “You didn’t kill your wife. She was dead before you got home that night. Now that we have the whole timeline, they know. It wasn’t you.”

His lips were moving. “It wasn’t… I didn’t…”

Tonks moved closer and touched his arm. Tears ran down his face, and a sob escaped his lips. 

Behind him, she saw two Ministry officials coming with scrolls of parchment and quills. “Not now,” she mouthed, waving them away. They warily looked between her and the man who was slowly crumbling to pieces, and turned back down the hall.

Thank Merlin, Tonks thought. If they had not backed off, she’d have had to put up a fight, and she didn't think Bill would have handled it well. He wasn't handling anything, much less his moment of redemption, at all. He could sign the statements that closed the case against him later.

Suddenly, the man sprang into motion, taking her by surprise and knocking her a little off balance. She flailed against the wall for a second, and then he crushed her into a hug. She held him while he shook and cried.

Right now… right now, he needed a different kind of closure. She never got the chance to do it for Remus, but she was going to do it for Bill, no matter what it took. 

“We’ll find them,” she said to him. “We’ll find whoever did this, and make them pay.”


	9. 9 Shell Cottage

9 Shell Cottage

Bill inhaled the salt air, thinking that Fleur would have called it a perfect picnic day. The surf was low, with the wind just light enough to rock the sea oats back and forth. He hadn’t been to Shell Cottage since his world had shattered, but the path from the apparition point to the house was still free of weeds, which meant that the landscaping spells were still in place. 

It was nice to know that something of Fleur’s had survived. 

The last few hours had been a mixed blessing. He’d eaten, but if anyone asked him what it was, he couldn’t remember anything other than Tonks telling him he wasn’t leaving the Ministry building until it was gone. The guilt had subsided, replaced by a slow rage that steadily grew within him. If he hadn’t killed Fleur, then someone else had. He’d spent a year paying for her death, and the guilty party was going to have to stand up and face the consequences.

Tonks had given him the option of coming out to Shell Cottage later, after he’d had some rest, but what was the point? Just like the blood test, it needed to be done. He probably wasn’t going to sleep if they made him go back to his flat. Lying awake in his bed to avoid the nightmares would only be replaced with lying awake and visualizing what would happen to those responsible for Fleur’s murder if he ever got his hands on them. The sooner he got this over with, the sooner he could let it all go.

They walked together down the path, through the sand, and up to the cottage that used to be his favorite place in the world. He stared for a few minutes at the front door, torn between remembering and forgetting. His feet wouldn’t budge.

“I… I don’t know if I can do it again.”

But that was exactly why they had come. Tonks reached out and took his hand. She’d been with him when he’d signed the statement and she was right. It was important to go through everything at the scene – to see if the surroundings would trigger the memory of a detail he’d missed.

The unknown details made him sick to his stomach.

Bill swallowed. Her hand was comforting… reassuring… confident. “I’ll try.”

Tonks led him back down the path to the apparition point. “Okay, let’s start from the beginning. I assume you arrived here.”

“Yes. It was already dark. I’d expected Fleur to be getting ready for bed – she was a morning person, but the porch light was off. All the inside lights were on. I remember thinking how odd that was.”

“Do you remember opening the door?” Tonks asked gently.

“I don’t know.” He rubbed his face and groaned. This was stupid. He distinctly remembered standing on the porch. He remembered everything about the lights. Why couldn’t he remember opening the damned door? 

And then something came to him. He could almost feel it. 

“Bill?” Tonks said from beside him. “Bill, you’ve gone white as a ghost. Are you alright?”

He hadn’t remembered this back at the Ministry, but now it hit him like a ton of bricks.

“I… I remember feeling hot. My head hurt like hell, and I couldn’t see straight.”

“Was that before you opened the door?”

“Yeah,” he said. He didn’t just remember it. He could feel it, like it was happening all over again. 

“I think I’m gonna…” and then he was. Sick over the side of the porch rail into the bushes.

Tonks’ wand was out in a heartbeat. “Get off the porch, Bill.”

Bill staggered back and felt Tonks pull him all the way off the porch and back onto the path. Immediately, the sick feeling disappeared and his head cleared.

“It’s a Memory Modification Ward,” he said, and pointed his wand at the porch, but Tonks beat him to it. 

“Revealio,” she chanted. 

Nothing happened.

“They must have checked already. It would have been too obvious to miss.”

“Unless it isn't a spell.” Bill flicked his wand over the area.

“What are you doing?” Tonks asked.

“Checking for residual magic.”

She nodded and started checking too. “There.” She pointed her wand at a small frog statue, no bigger than his fist, which was perched on a shelf above the door jamb.

“I'd forgotten about that thing.” Bill squinted at the small clay animal, one of Fleur’s whimsical touches. It pulsed mildly, making it difficult to focus on.

“You have a good eye,” he said to Tonks. “I can barely see it.”

“It doesn’t want to be seen. I had to look at it sideways,” she said. 

Bill took a step forward to retrieve the thing, and immediately felt the nausea kick in. He backed off the porch and rummaged in his robe for a small silver pouch and tossed it to Tonks. “I can’t go up there. Put it in that.”

Tonks reached up, and with the tip of her wand, prodded the frog statue off the ledge. She caught it deftly inside the bag.

“Why didn't it react to the Reveal Spell?” she asked.

“It only affected me,” Bill said. “That means they were after me the whole time, and Fleur was simply in the way.”

The guilt had seeped back in, a cold, clammy sensation. After Tonks closed the silver bag, he sat down on the steps and put his head between his knees. She sat down beside him, tucking the silver bag away.

“So, you just walk around with an extra hex canceling bag in your pocket all the time?”

“Comes with the job.”

“That explains why you blacked out last year, and why no one found this thing afterwards.”

That made Bill wonder what else they would find inside. He reluctantly got up and faced the door.

“Do you need another minute?” Tonks asked.

“I've had a year. Let's get this over with. Alohomora.”

The door swung slowly open, but Bill’s feet were still firmly planted on the mat.

“I'll give you a bit. The perimeter needs checking.” Tonks patted his shoulder and headed around the house, poking her wand into the bushes as she circled around to the back. 

Bill watched her go, and then stepped into his past.

The little house was mostly the same. All the furniture was still in place, but everything that had made it his and Fleur’s had been removed. The throw on the couch, the plants by the window, the smell of fresh lemon balm and lavender sachets, that was gone. It was just a place now. Bill flicked his wand at the bay window, which opened to freshen the stale air. A patch of short, blue hair bobbed past and around to the front. Tonks came up the front steps and wiped the sand from her boots onto the mat.

Tonks swished her wand, and the sand swirled in a miniature eddy and then floated out the door. “Sorry for the mess. It’s beautiful.”

Caught up in the moment, Bill remembered why his wife had loved this place so much. Fleur always kept everything clean, but she never minded a bit of sand. She’d always believed that sand was a natural consequence of choosing to live by the shore and was happy to pay the price for the tranquil scenery.

“Yeah,” he said. Then he shook himself out of the memory, realizing that Tonks had been talking to him and he hadn’t caught a word of it. “What were you saying?”

“Your mother. Have you talked to her?” Tonks looked at him pointedly.

“No, I haven’t… not since… Fleur.”

“She’s worried about you,” Tonks said. “Not that I’ve spoken to her since the funeral, but I know her well enough to know that she worries. Now that you’re clear…”

“I’ll put that on my calendar,” Bill said curtly. 

“Fine,” Tonks said, letting the matter drop. “Alright, we’re here. Talk me through it.”

He pointed to a spot on the floor right between the kitchen and the living area. “There.” He closed his eyes as the room started slowly spinning. Steady, he reminded himself.

Tonks took out a small file from her robe and flipped through photographs of the crime scene. “I'm sorry, but this is going to be graphic. You don't have to watch if you don't want to.”

“No, it’s okay. I’m okay,” he said. He wasn't, but it was too late to put this off any longer.

The magical schematics from the case file sprang to life in the form of a grainy, three-dimensional overlay. It shimmered, making it easy to determine what was real in the space and what had been photographed a year ago. She grimaced and swiped the image of the body away, leaving only an outline on the floor. “Someone attacked her from behind,” Tonks said without emotion, taking on the role of her job. “She fell forward, facing the door.” 

Bill tried his best to be helpful. That was why they’d come all this way. “If I had transformed, and was thinking strategically, I’d have left through the window. There's a small path that leads through the woods all the way to the Village. When it's dark, no one can see you coming or going. 

“We used to the path a lot. Fleur liked to walk to the village for groceries.”

He felt the pain surge up and let it come to the surface this time, needing to feel something. “But the Wizengamot held me later than I expected. If I've been there earlier, I could have…”

“The Wizengamot,” Tonks interrupted. “Why were you there?”

“For Greyback’s hearing,” Bill said, swallowing the lump that had formed in his throat. “I testified against Greyback that day. I didn’t go to work. It took all day.”

 

“That’s why the date was so familiar,” she said. “That was the night that Greyback disappeared.”

“What do you mean, ‘disappeared’?” Bill said slowly. “I saw him in custody that afternoon. I made statements against him, along with a whole group of people that he'd hurt. There's no way he… “

But he’d been so caught up in his grief and guilt, too broken to follow the news reports. His coworkers had never mentioned anything, knowing better than to bring up anything connected with his wife’s death.

“What happened with Greyback after I left?” he asked flatly.

“They called it a security glitch. He was gone for maybe ten minutes, and then he was back. The Ministry kept it quiet, and nothing about it was documented in the file. I was called in for extra security that afternoon when it happened. That's how I know about it.”

“Where is Greyback now?” he growled out the name.

“Easy there. He's still in Azkaban. If he wasn't, we'd have heard something.”

“I want to see for myself. If there's any chance…”

Tonks nodded. She checked her watch. “It’s late afternoon, but they still accept visitors for another hour. We can make it if we leave now.” 

Of course she'd know Azkaban’s timetable. Maybe Fate hadn’t dumped a load of manure on him after all. It was nice to have an Auror on his side, someone who wanted to find Fleur’s killer as badly as he did.

Tonks' expression suddenly turned wistful. “It’s a nice place. I’m sure you were both very happy here.”

It had been, he agreed. This place held the happiest memories of his life. And the worst.

Over the past year, Bill had slowly gotten himself together, but returning to this place had been too risky while he was in hiding. Now that he could reclaim his property, he wasn’t sure that he wanted to. He’d always remember Fleur, but he couldn't walk into this kitchen or sit down in the living room without her last moments constantly flashing before his eyes. Returning to the front porch, he felt the pain surge up again, fresh and hot, like an old wound ripping open. Everything that had made him love this place was dead and gone.

“I should put it up for sale,” he said, and locked the door.


	10. 10 Azkaban

10 Azkaban

 

Tonks displayed her Auror’s badge in front of her like a shield as she stood on the deck of the SS Steamer, her boots slick with the remains of salty waves sloshing over the bow. She’d had to show the badge once to the guards on the mainland when she and Bill appeared at the departure dock, twice to get the proper clearance for the boat, and repeatedly to every official present as they boarded the unmanned vessel headed for Azkaban prison.

Beside her, Bill had his hands wrapped tightly around the handrail, anxious to see for himself whether the man who’d given him the scar running down his left cheek was still where he ought to be.

“Are you ready for this?” she asked.

“Are you?” Bill kept his gaze level with the horizon as the boat lurched, bumping the dock at the base of the island fortress in the middle of the North Sea. The ropes snaked their way towards the dock, wrapping securely around the posts. Tonks figured that since they were about to get off the boat and enter the most secure prison in all of the Wizarding World, it’d be a waste of time to put her badge away now.

At the entrance, they were greeted by a member of the Security Officials and Very Important Wizards, who sat at a long steel table, his only companions being a small notepad and a tin of biscuits. He checked his notes and then looked them up and down.

“State your business.”

Tonks flashed her badge. “My associate, Chancey, and I are here to interview a prisoner.”

The official snapped his notebook closed and stood at attention. “Yes, of course. I’ve been waiting. He’s on level three.”

Tonks signed forms and filled out a Visitor’s Request, noting that the official’s uniform was not quite up to code, but didn't say anything. He led them down a corridor and two flights of stairs that ended at a narrow landing that opened to a long hallway. White doors ran along the hall with little windows covered by mesh. The guard stopped them at number eleven.

“Here we are.”

Tonks peered inside and saw a bony, ridge-backed werewolf with matted hair.

“He’s transformed,” she said. “Why?”

“We don’t ask,” the official said. “He’s like that most of the time. We just make sure he stays where he is. Oh, and bring his visitors.”

“Someone visits him?” Bill asked. 

“Some old lady comes at supper and smells like mothballs. The lucky sod’s granted one visitor a day for ten minutes, and takes full advantage.”

“His visits are supervised, yeah?” Tonks asked the official. “Little old lady–” she pointed to the window. “Werewolf?”

“I suppose. I’ve only seen the woman a few times, but her name’s on the visitor log all the time. ‘Delphine Uberwald’, it says. She comes like clockwork, right as my shift ends.”

Bill peered through the window and then exchanged looks with Tonks. “I can't say for sure that that–“ he pointed to the werewolf half asleep in the padded room, “is Greyback. I've never seen him so…”

“Drugged?” Tonks offered. The Wolfsbane kept werewolves sane and in control during their transformation, and sometimes made them sleepy, but she’d never seen a werewolf so lethargic and comatose. Lycanthropy – the transformation, made their brains go haywire – stimulating them, not putting them to sleep, which was why the virus was so dangerous, and why Wolfsbane was so important. “I guess if he’s been in wolf form for over a year, then he’d maybe be exhausted.”

“He’s not always in wolf form.” The official pointed to a roll of human clothes bundled up in the corner. “Sometimes he wears those.”

“And he’s Fenrir Greyback when he’s human, right?”

“That’s what his papers say.”

Tonks wasn’t impressed with this so-called official who didn’t seem to know very much about the things that she and Bill had come all this way to learn. The man in the rumpled uniform led them back to the entrance, insisting that the next shift would have to give them access to the prisoner. 

“There’s something fishy going on here,” Tonks whispered to Bill as they watched him exchange badges and keys with another official who had just gotten off the boat. The two officials exchanged words, and then the new bloke approached them, wearing a pressed and well-fitting uniform, complete with Security Official cap tilted back on his head. His respectable attire put his predecessor to shame.

“You here for a prisoner?” he asked Tonks, talking more to the Auror robe than to the woman wearing it.

Well, Tonks thought. This official looked more promising than the last one. “No, we’re here to interview a visitor.”

“We are?” Bill asked, as Tonks tried to subtly shush him.

“Older woman. Visits the werewolf on level three.”

“Oh, her?” the official rubbed at his nose. “What do you want with the smelly old bat?”

“Just a few questions. And we need a favor from you.”

The official’s ears practically perked up. He probably owned a terrier that acted the same way when offered treats. “Favor, eh? What sort?”

“We want to observe the visitation.”

The official looked to the side and squinted a bit. “Oh, well…”

Tonks clinked a couple of galleons together in her pocket, which got the official’s attention. She palmed them into his hand. If this didn’t work, she’d have gotten her boots salt-soaked for nothing. 

“Done,” he said.

“But we don’t want to be seen,” Tonks added, giving him another handful of coins, pushing her luck.

The official gave her a short salute. “Wait here.”

“What are you doing?” Bill asked.

“You said you weren't sure that was really Greyback in there. Remus could tell when he got close enough. He said the smell of his sire was unmistakable. I know you're not a full Were, but you’ve recently transformed, so it's worth a try. We just have to get you close enough.”

“Alright,” Bill said. “You've convinced me. But how did you know that the official would take a bribe?”

“He’s dressed to impress,” Tonks said. “That means something around here.”

Just as the first official had said, the visitation boat was right on time for supper. The official had her wait at the entrance, while he set up Tonks and Bill in a small observation room behind a one-way pane of glass covered in Safety Spells. The air vibrated around them. They were some of the strongest security wards she’d ever felt. 

Bill agreed. “These are close to the strength of the wards in Gringotts,” he said. “Not quite their full strength, but a close rival.”

“Interesting,” Tonks said as they watched the official lead an older woman with thick white hair and a walking cane into the room. She wore a blouse of old lace and had a large, emerald ring on her right hand. The jewel looked like it might weigh more than she did. The old woman hoisted a large handbag onto the plain wooden table and sat down in the chair farthest away from the glass.

“I wonder who that is,” Bill muttered.

“It's not his mother,” Tonks said.

“How do you know?”

“He killed her. It was in his file.”

Bill stared at the woman. “There's something strange about her,” he started, but was interrupted by the door opening again.

The werewolf was led into the room, bound by shackles and chains, more pathetic looking than he’d been in his cell. He was wearing the human clothes, a grey and black striped set of plain button down shirt and pants. He sat wearily in the chair closest to the observation glass. The official fastened his chains to the table and stepped back, nodding to the visitor.

“There’s the old chap now,” the woman said, her voice low and gravelly. She took a large thermos out of her handbag, discreetly added something to it and shook it up. Then she pushed it across the table.

“There ya go,” she said, sounding like too much gin and cigars. “It’s his favorite.”

The official took the thermos, careful to keep it away from his nose, and helped the werewolf drink it.

“Ugh,” he said as the werewolf messily drank whatever was in it.

To their surprise, the werewolf suddenly shimmered, changing into Greyback in his human form, right before their eyes.

The woman patted the back of Greyback’s hand. “Calmed the beast right down, didn’t it? And for being such a nice young man, I brought something for you, too.” She put a small pouch into the official’s hand, which he squirreled away. Then she got up and left.

“That’s not Wolfsbane,” Bill said.

“No kidding. Let’s go.” Tonks and Bill left the observation room just as the man in chains was being led out of the visitor’s room. The little old lady, stinking of all the decades that had passed her by, teetered unsteadily and put a frail hand on Bill. She patted his chest appreciatively and went on her way.

Bill tensed up, pulling a strange bundle of herbs out of his breast pocket. “What’s this?” He turned his head to the side and sniffed, keeping his eyes on the man in chains who was wearing Greyback’s skin. “That's not Greyback,” he said, and then pointed to the frail woman who was nimbly climbing up the stairs without using her cane.

“That is!”

The old woman sneered at them, and Tonks started after her, dodging the cane that came flying at her head. She sprinted up the stairs, following the fugitive who had more strength and speed than a frail old lady should. The woman ran straight through the security checkpoint, tipping over the table and spilling the tin of biscuits. 

“Hey!” the official shouted after them, panting as he reached his post, and then yelled “Hey!” again when Tonks and Bill followed straight through, crushing the biscuits under their feet.

The person, whoever it really was, and Tonks was almost certain that Bill was right and it was somehow Greyback, looked back and sneered again. “Better drink your coffee, Weasley!” she called, tearing off to the docks. The woman leapt onto the waiting boat which must have sat just behind the anti-apparition point, because she suddenly disappeared with a loud crack.

Tonks swore and turned to see Bill painting behind her, half unhinged.

“That was… I can’t…” he heaved.

“It's okay. We’ll get him, I promise.” Tonks said.

“I know that. “ His hands were shaking. “We have to get out of here.”

Tonks slung her arm around him and they started running to the apparition point where the old lady had gone. 

“We’re not sure where he went, you know that.” 

“Hurry,” Bill rasped.

Tonks anchored her foot on the deck of the boat and prepared to side-along with him. His pulse raced, frantic under her grasp. “You don’t look so good,” she said to him, seeing that he’d turned pale and sickly. “Where do you need to go?”

“Away from here!” he growled, sprouting a nasty set of fangs. “It's coming!”


	11. 11 Erised Cafe

11 Erised Cafe

In the alley behind the Erised Cafe, Tonks remembered what Bill had been like before, hairy and ragey, and set him down out of sight.

“Be right back,” she said, patting him on the shoulder.

Sweat beaded on his brow, and he was swallowing air in large gulps, even though they’d stopped running a while ago. He grabbed her sleeve. “I don't think the barista we need works this late.” 

“I'll get you what you need, even if I have to make it myself,” she promised. According to Bill’s coworkers, they kept the stuff in the back. She just had to get to it and then get it to Bill before his body betrayed him.

Bill let her go. “Hurry.”

Inside, Tonks ignored the late afternoon line and ran right up to the counter. “I have an emergency order for William,” she said to the barista, interrupting the wizard at the register who looked at her rudely. She scribbled the coded order onto a napkin and shoved it at the barista, ignoring the murmuring crowd behind her.

The barista read the napkin and then looked at her oddly. “We are out of that,” she said. “He'll have to come back in the morning… hey, where are you going?”

Tonks had already leapt over the coffee counter and barreled her way through the service door.

In the back, she saw three startled baristas on their break, a dishwasher who didn’t seem at all surprised at the intrusion, and suspiciously enough, the little old lady from Azkaban.

“Took you long enough,” she sneered, and then morphed into a much larger, much angrier man.

Greyback stood before her, shaking off the remaining effects of the potion that he’d used to disguise himself to get in and out of the prison. He looked nothing like the little old lady and everything like his Azkaban picture from the file, maybe with a little more grey in his hair. The only thing that remained of his disguise was the large emerald ring on his finger. This was the real man, Fenrir Greyback, not the Polyjuice pretender they had seen in the cell. 

She tapped her ear to notify her team and addressed the man in front of her. 

“Fenrir Greyback, “she said, speaking loud enough that her team would be able to hear, “you are under arrest for impersonation, evading capture, escaping from Azkaban…”

Unimpressed by her declaration, Greyback fished a small bundle of herbs out of his pocket. He put it up to his nose, inhaling deeply, then shoved the whole wad in his mouth and chewed slowly, like a cow enjoying its cud. Tonks broke off her speech and gasped as he must have grown an inch and bulked out by a few kilos right in front of her.

“I can smell him, your friend,” Greyback said, hair sprouting on his arms. The lace blouse had ripped at the seams and hung around him like a tattered shroud. “I must thank you for bringing him straight to us. This time, we’ll bring him in where he belongs, with the rest of his kind.”

Tonks stood her ground, facing the monster who’d damaged Bill, the same vengeful tosser who had made a daily hell out of her husband’s life. She’d thought long about what Remus could have been if Greyback hadn’t infected him at such a young age. He’d have been confident, unafraid of living, and able to accept the love he deserved. She shook more out of anger than fear. Oh, she was afraid, but it wouldn’t do her any good to show it.

She flinched as black-hooded Hunters crashed through the back door into the tiny kitchen. Five of them stomped over the door that had ripped off its hinges and fallen to the floor. Distracted by the sudden turn of events, Tonks found herself surrounded and wandless. One of them had swiftly nicked her wand and tossed it over to Greyback.

“Weasley’s not out front,” one said.

Greyback spat out the wad of herbs through partially-descended fangs. “Find him. I’ll take care of this one.” He snapped Tonks' wand in half and shoved it in his mouth. Sparks flew as he ground the rowan wood to mulch with his oversized molars.

The hooded men pushed through the service door, eliciting screams from the coffee house patrons. Tonks watched the half-beast standing before her, waiting for his next move.

“The Hunters are working with you. How?”

He laughed through the splintered wood. “Of course they work for me. I created them.” He took another bundle of herbs out of his pocket and waved it in her face. “We are no longer slaves to the phases of the moon. This stuff gives us the power to half-transform at will and do what you Aurors are incapable of. We’ve taken down more Death Eater Sympathizers in the last month than the Auror Department has captured in a year. You should give us a medal!”

“I'll give you something else!” Tonks grabbed a heavy can of condensed milk off the nearest shelf and hurled it , hitting him square on the jaw. She ducked under one of the prep tables as Greyback shook off the insult. He growled, low and dangerous.

Then he lunged after her. Tonks had time to grab a metal serving tray and block his hairy punch. 

“You can’t stop us. We seeded the flower pots all over this place, so when the Weres come for their Wolfsbane, they also get a whiff of the herb. We find them and bring them home. We’re everywhere now. Just imagine a whole city where we are in control, and you weaklings are the ones who serve us! Can you see it?”

Greyback ripped the tray from her hands and threw it angrily across the kitchen. The Lycanthropy had kicked in, making him more ragey and less focused. His ears pricked up, and his head jerked, tracking the clatter of the tray across the room. When his head swiveled back to her, she’d already scrambled away and hidden under the washing tub. If she could keep him distracted and hold his attention until her team showed up, she might have a chance. Her wrist started glowing brighter.

Screams came from the other side of the wall, and then a half-transformed, hairy version of Bill burst through and pounced on Greyback. Behind him, through the broken wall, her team had fully engaged the Hunters. 

Greyback slashed down, narrowly missing Bill. His wrist glowed brightly through the overgrowth of hair on his arm. They were both in danger.

He found Tonks with his eyes and nodded. If they were both going down, it wouldn’t be without a fight.

She could live with that.

Each injury that Bill gave Greyback slowed him down even more. Half-changed wasn’t full werewolf power, and the older man was finally showing his age.

“You made me like this!” Bill growled. “How?”

“I had one of my men slip some herb powder into your coffee at the Wizengamot. Then they followed the scent of your transformation. You were our first successful experiment, and we had hoped to bring you in, but you didn’t embrace your rage. So we had to scrap your extraction. Ah, I see it’s finally taking hold.”

Tonks could see Bill was losing control, and there was nothing she could do about it. She had no wand, and her wandless spells were unpredictable at best.

“Join us!” Greyback hissed. “You owe nothing to anyone. Survival of the fittest is the most natural way to establish our dominance over this world. Voldemort may have been in the wrong, but he showed us the way.”

“Voldemort’s dead,” Bill growled. 

Tonks shrugged. “Well, if that’s how he wants to go.”

Greyback laughed. “What are you going to do, little girl? I ate your wand.”

The sounds of battle from the next room hadn’t stopped. Her team was still fighting off the Hunters and weren’t going to be any help to them. Her eyes darted around the small kitchen until she located the cutlery station. The coffee shop didn’t have much, so she would have to use what was on hand.

“I’ll do whatever I have to,” she said, and picked up the cake knife.

“If that’s how you want it,” Greyback said, twisting the jeweled ring around his finger.

Bill’s eyes suddenly lost their sharpness. His hair bristled. A low grown started in the back of his throat. He shook his head, like a wolf shaking off the rain.

“Get rid of this one. She’s in the way,” commanded Greyback, pointing to Tonks.

Bill turned on her, snarling. She saw in his eyes that he was still there, but his body was not under his control. Tonks felt the mark on her wrist burn like it never had before. 

“Run!” he commanded, and at the same time, he surged forward.

He tried to attack without attacking, slamming himself into the stainless steel tables, trying to knock himself out of Greyback’s control.

“How’s he controlling you?” she asked him, ducking under one of his wide swings. He got credit for putting on a convincing show.

Bill’s eyes darted to where Greyback was watching them, and then he picked up a set of mixing cups and slung them at her head.

She swerved out of the way of the flying cups and ran into Bill’s other hairy hand. He knocked her back in front of him and lifted her off the floor by her robe collar.

“You,” he growled in her face, low and menacing, “have to hurt me.”

“What? I can’t.” She struggled against his grip, making it hard for her to breathe. But then she understood. If Greyback made him kill her, they’d both lose. She had to buy more time. She was still holding the cake knife, not the best tool. Still it was something.

She smacked his head with the side of the knife, and he swung her around in frustration, shaking her like a rag doll. The room spun, and she caught a flash of metal along the wall. She dropped the cake knife and reached out, grabbing a forked skewer off the wall rack.

“The ring,” he said. “It’s coming from the ring. I should have recognized it before.”

Tonks made an effort to bash her fists against him, reaching into one of his pockets and finding her prize.

This isn’t Bill Weasley, she reminded herself, getting more and more lightheaded from his grip. This is the beast that stands between me and the air.

She stabbed downward as hard as she could, landing the skewer on top of his thigh. She sunk it as deep as she could, and then kicked with her feet, driving it deeper.

Bill roared in pain and flung her across the kitchen. Her back smashed against the wall, where she was shook, but managed to stand. She lurched sideways as Bill dove for her again, then she dodged out of the way and scooted behind Greyback.

“You can’t hide, little thing,” Greyback growled at her. “I’d take you myself, but this is much more entertaining.”

Bill lunged forward, diving straight into Greyback who stood in his way. He made a scene of trying to go straight through the older werewolf, and while they were both engaged in an awkward dance, she took her shot and grabbed Greyback’s hand and shook it as hard as she could.

The ring slipped right off.

Greyback snarled and struck Bill in the face with the back of his hand. As her wrist continued to burn like fire, Tonks lunged for the ring that had slipped under one of the tables. She grabbed for it and dumped it inside the hex cancelling bag. 

Immediately, Bill lurched forward and knocked Greyback to the ground. Then he fell to his knees right on top of the old Were’s chest. Tonks did her best to cast a Body Binding Spell on the old werewolf, which resulted in the hairy man being wrapped from head to toe in strangling vines. On the other side of the broken wall, the remaining Hunters dropped what they were doing and looked confused. Without the powerful suggestion magic, they had become disoriented, and were easy to round up.

Bill had ripped the skewer out of his leg and was bleeding. Tonks found the Wolfsbane stash and gave it to him, returning him to human form within minutes. 

“Thanks,” he said, using a wad of dishtowels to press firmly on his leg.

She held up the silver bag, swinging it gently back and forth in the air. “How much do you think this ring is worth, based on a Gringotts evaluation?” 

Bill told her the estimated insurance value that the goblins had assigned to it before it had changed hands.

Tonks delivered the ring, inside the hex cancelling bag, to Williamson. “Here’s Goyle’s missing funds,” she said. 

Williamson took one look at Greyback, who was struggling to breathe through the vines looping around his nose and throat. He whistled. “Lost your wand again, Tonks?”

“He ate it,” she said, slumping to the floor next to Bill. “Ow, I think I cracked a rib.”


	12. 12 Whitehall

12 Whitehall

Early Saturday morning, Bill Weasley and Nymphadora Tonks had been officially discharged from St. Mungo’s Hospital. Instead of following Healer’s orders to go home and sleep off the remaining healing potions, they’d both gone straight to the Ministry to check in with the processing of Fenrir Greyback. Both of them had their reasons to make sure that his case was properly handled this time.

Veritaserum got them the confessions they needed. The bribed official in Azkaban had been sacked. Greyback would stand trial for the death of Fleur, along with a long list of other crimes that had been attributed to the Hunters. 

Tonks said she wanted to be there to see him put away again. This time, for good. “Remus should rest easy now,” she said. “It took too long, but it's done.”

They’d wanted to do more, but once Williamson caught sight of Tonk’s arm in a sling and Bill’s limping gait, he officially ordered them to leave, giving her three additional days of mandatory vacation before she could return to work. He also told Bill that Gringotts had been notified that he wouldn’t be reporting in until the following Wednesday. 

Outside of the Ministry Building, Big Ben tolled in the distance as Bill and Tonks walked down Whitehall Road. Getting officially kicked out didn’t mean they had to go anywhere specific, and Muggle London was a comforting distraction. They passed the usual apparition point without a word. She didn’t say anything, and he didn’t bring it up.

Neither of them wanted to go home yet.

They passed a statue of a Muggle on a horse with a plaque that Bill neglected to read. He was getting hungry again. The stale pastries in the Auror’s Office hadn’t looked appetizing. At ten in the morning, it was too early for pubs. They continued to walk in silence, not sure where the road was taking them. He needed to reassess, untangle his head and sort out the jumble of the last few days. Tonks was making it easy on him – no questions, no demands. She looked tired too, but in a way that suggested that she was ready to lay the past to rest now that her husband’s tormentor was finally locked away.

“I hate Saturdays,” she said. “There’s nothing to do, and when I’m not busy, I think too much. I don’t know what those Healers were thinking. I’m not gonna be able to get any sleep. They must have double dosed the Dreamless Sleep Draught last night.”

“Yeah,” Bill agreed. He’d slept hard too, but had woken up dog tired. He didn’t want to go home, either.

 

According to the latest tests, Bill's Lycanthropy was in recession again, now that he wasn’t being exposed to the dangerous combination of herbs that Greyback had concocted. He might not even need daily Wolfsbane once the residual traces of the herbs worked their way out of his system. 

They had come to a large intersection at the end of the street. The Muggles had erected a large pillar with yet another statue of a man on a horse, marking some political memorial he had no idea about. The road, with its many lanes, veered around the statue in a circular pattern.

It was entirely possible that he would never have another transformation. He’d had a hard year, the hardest of his life. But things were finally looking up, and for the first time in forever, he finally had a reason to move forward.

He motioned for Tonks to cross with him to the other side of the the multi-laned road, along with a smattering of locals. His leg was starting to ache and he knew it was time to rest it, but it was so nice being outside without Glamour Charms, or not having to look over his shoulder.

A lot had happened since he’d met Nymphadora Tonks. It was hard to believe that only three days had passed. 

“I'm going to visit my parents next weekend,” Bill said. “I owled Mum and told her I’d come round this time next Saturday. It’ll give me another week to get myself together, and keep my family from hounding me.” 

“Good for you,” she said. “I should catch up with Molly some time. It's been a while.”

“Well, you could come with me.”

“Really?” she looked genuinely surprised. Bill thought she might even be pleased. He wasn't sure, because he didn't know her very well, not really. But he was willing to change that fact. 

“Are you sure you're ready for that? She’ll probably assume things.” Tonks lifted up her wrist as an example. “Because we've got the matched set and all.”

She'd said it in a jovial, friendly, dare he admit it, warm manner. But she was also right. Bill laughed. “You do know my mother,” he said.

The conversation naturally lulled in front of a casual coffee shop, sporting a menu of fresh food and specially blended drinks.

“If we're going to put up a united front, we will have to get our stories straight,” he said, pretending that everything was agreed upon. It was worth a risk. He had nothing to lose, and she looked receptive to the idea anyway.

Tonks looked at him skeptically. “What are you thinking?”

“I'm thinking that maybe we could take a shot at this,” he said. 

Tonks raised an eyebrow. 

Bill took in her appearance. The spikes on the top of her head were now a light-blue, and he was going to have to get her to explain that to him someday. Maybe, when they had a break from their jobs and one of them wasn’t being hunted by a rogue vigilante group or struggling not to half-transform into a man-beast… oh, wait.

Neither of them were due back to work for three days, Healer’s orders, and both of them had just walked three kilometers with sore ribs and a healing leg sprain just so they wouldn’t have to go back to their respective empty flats. He smiled as her hair changed again, from blue to violet, and then back to blue as she contemplated his suggestion. That someday had just become today.

Bill pulled on the door to the shop, and a burst of cinnamon and chai wafted through the air from inside. It smelled like the start of something new.

He held the door open for her. “Can I buy you a cup of coffee?”


End file.
